by Ellen Levine (1989)
When her family moves to New York from Hong Kong, Mei Mei finds it difficult to adjust to school and learn the alien sounds of English.
Sally Heinrich
Sarah hadn't wanted to come to Australia - She'd been perfectly happy with things as they were in Singapore, where school was for learning, and 'being cool' was a non-issue - Mum and Dad had different ideas about how she was to adapt to the Australian life - The kids at Sarah's new school gave her a hard time - Then, she started hearing voice.
Jacqueline Woodson
Margaret loves her parents and hanging out with her best friend, Maizon. Then it happens, like a one-two punch, during the summer she turns eleven: first, Margaret's father dies of a heart attack, and then Maizon is accepted at an expensive boarding school, far away from the city they call home. For the first time in her life, Margaret has to turn to someone who isn't Maizon, who doesn't know her heart and her dreams. . . . "Ms. Woodson writes with a sure understanding of the thoughts of young people, offering a poetic, eloquent narrative that is not simply a story of nearly adolescent children, but a mature exploration of grown-up issues: death, racism, independence, the nurturing of the gifted black child and, most important, self-discovery." (The New York Times)