On the Block: Stories of Immigrant Families - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593648471 ISBN 13: 9780593648476

Verlag: Random House Children's Books, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

From We Need Diverse Books, the organization behind Flying Lessons & Other Stories, comes an inspiring middle-grade anthology that follows the loosely interconnected lives of multigenerational immigrant families, the residents at the Entrada apartment building. Edited by Ellen Oh, a founding member of WNDB.

"The beauty of their shared home does not come from any single person, but instead from the sum of their experiences" -Meg Medina, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature

12 Families. 12 Cultures. 1 Building.

Welcome to the Entrada, home to these everyday Americans, including

• the new kid on the block, who is both homesick and curious
• a Popsicle-bridge builder, a ghost hunter, and a lion dancer
• their families, friends, and neighbors from all around the world!

Published in partnership with We Need Diverse Books, this anthology features award-winning authors Tracey Baptiste, David Bowles, Adrianna Cuevas, Sayantani DasGupta, Debbi Michiko Florence, Adam Gidwitz, Erin Entrada Kelly, Minh Lê, Ellen Oh, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Andrea Wang, and Jasmine Warga. These inspiring stories celebrate family, friendship, culture, and American immigrant life today.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ellen Oh is an award-winning author and editor of middle-grade and young adult novels, including Haru, Zombie Dog Hero; Finding Junie Kim; The Dragon Egg Princess; the Spirit Hunters trilogy; and The Colliding Worlds of Mina Lee. She has also edited and contributed to On the Block: Stories of Home, You Are Here: Connecting Flights and Flying Lessons & Other Stories. She is a founding member of We Need Diverse Books, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing diversity in children’s literature. Ellen lives in Rockville, Maryland, with her husband, three human children, and two dog children.

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Apt. 5B

So, this was it. Their new home.

Lila stared up at the yellow building. It was pretty. Plenty of plants around. And lots of interesting stores nearby. But their new home was an apartment building, and she had never lived in an apartment before. She had no idea exactly how many people lived in the Entrada. That was the name of the building. Who even knew that buildings had names? Back in Trinidad she could count the inhabitants of her house (which did not have a name) on one hand: her mum, her dad, herself, and their dog, Padna. Padna couldn’t come to the United States with them. Padna was too old to travel and had to be left behind. Now she belonged to Lila’s cousins, Derryk and Naima, and Lila belonged in an apartment where any dog was going to be unhappy, because where were they going to run around or do their business?

She sighed and followed her parents up, up, up to their new apartment, 5B.

“Well, this makes sense,” Lila said.

“What does?” her dad asked.

Lila shook her head. “Nothing!”

The nothing she wanted to keep to herself was that the number of their apartment, 5B, seemed to be part of a theme. B for better, her parents’ favorite word since they announced they were going to be moving. Not to another house. Not to another town. But to another country. Which meant that everything Lila knew, she was about to leave behind. Including Padna. None of that was better. It was very much the worst.

Her parents had tried to be reassuring.

It’ll be better once we get everything packed up.

Things will be better after we get over there.

Everything will go better when we have our own place and we’re not staying by Tanty Veronica.

That last one was true. Tanty Veronica’s had been a squeeze. She was her mother’s aunt, and had lived in the United States since she was a teen. By the looks of it, everything she had ever acquired since she moved to the United States was stuffed into her very small house. At least Tanty Veronica had a house. The Entrada apartment building was something a whole lot different.

It took them about an hour to unpack because they had barely anything. They’d sold most of what they had, even some of Lila’s old toys. Now they were starting again from scratch.

“It’s an adventure, right?” her mum said. Her voice echoed around the empty living room. “It’ll feel better once we get some furniture.”

Then the sun sank behind some of the buildings, and the room slowly went dark. Dad reached over and flipped the nearest light switch. Nothing happened. “Looks like we’ll need some bulbs,” he said.

“I guess it’ll be better when we get some lights,” Lila said.

Her dad laughed, then her mum, then she couldn’t help laughing, too.

That weekend, her mum took them on a crowded cross-town bus to a flea market. It was in a large, open parking lot. Tables were spread out, covered with things that looked like discards from people’s lives. Old furniture pieces, paintings in well-aged frames, bookends, needlepoint pillows, scraps of fabric and yarn, plenty of vintage clothing, and several old toys waiting to be re-loved. Behind them, the sellers looked out, eager to pass off what they had. It reminded Lila of the open markets in Trinidad, where people sold fruit and vegetables. The difference was that stuff was fresh. Everything at the flea market looked worn, rickety, and dusty. Definitely not better.

“This is amazing!” her dad said. “Where else can you find homemade portraits of movie stars made out of individual kernels of corn, right next to vintage teapots?” He pointed at two neighboring stalls. Lila could not tell if he was joking or not.

Her mum handed her a twenty-dollar bill. “Get anything you want,” she said.

Lila wandered through the stalls but kept an eye trained on her parents. In Trinidad she could always find her way, but here she couldn’t even figure out which way was north. The idea of getting lost made her queasy and extra cautious.

“You okay?” A girl with a pink streak in her hair stopped near Lila. “You look lost,” she continued.

Lila laughed nervously. “I’m trying not to be!” She glanced at her parents, who were eyeing a very tall lamp.

The girl smiled. “I know, right? This place is very distracting.” She pointed to the far end of the stalls. “Have you seen the booth with the restored dolls? It’s amazing.”

“Oh, not yet,” Lila said. “Maybe I’ll check it out.”

“See ya!” the girl said as she moved on.

About two hours later, Lila and her parents struggled to get onto the bus with the floor lamp and several full tote bags. The bus driver scowled at them as they tried to angle the lamp through the doors. But he waited until they were seated in the back row before he pulled off again. Lila planted her feet on the brass base of the lamp as the bus lurched all the way back to the Entrada. The metal pull string for the light swung and hit the pole, tinkling each time it wrapped and unwrapped around.

That night, the three of them huddled under the lamp and ate Chinese takeout. Afterward, Lila stood a tiny doll walking an even tinier dog on the floor next to her sleeping bag. The toy dog was the same shade of brown as Padna. It was the last thing Lila looked at before she fell asleep.

The next morning, her dad’s cousin, Uncle Blessing, was meeting them with his van to go furniture shopping. Her parents were giddy at the prospect of new furniture, but there wasn’t any room for Lila. She didn’t mind.

“You sure?” her dad asked.

“I’m going to explore the building more,” Lila said. “Find out what all the sounds are.”

“She’s not joking,” her father said. “This building real loud.”

“Wat kind of loud?” Uncle Blessing asked.

“Like, playing-love-songs-at-top-volume loud,” Lila said. “Or talking-to-an-imaginary-boy-in-the-stairwell loud.”

“What kind of spy business is this?” Uncle Blessing asked.

“It’s not spying if the whole building can hear it,” her mum said.

“In truth, eh?” Uncle Blessing agreed. “Anything else, Sherlock Holmes?”

“The building might be haunted,” Lila said.

“What?” Uncle Blessing’s high-pitched exclamation echoed around the room. “Nobody told me anything about coming inside a haunted building!” He looked at the front door like he wanted to bolt.

“A boy next door has been talking about a ghost,” Lila explained.

Uncle Blessing skittered away from the wall that separated the two apartments as if it were infected.

“Don’t tell me you ‘fraid ghosts, Blessing,” said Lila’s dad.

“I don’t play with them things, nah?” Uncle Blessing said. “Let we go and get your furniture, please.” He went straight out the door, and before it even closed behind him, Lila and her parents heard him pushing the elevator button several times.

The three of them looked at each other with silent surprise for a moment, then burst out laughing.

First, Lila decided to get to the bottom of the banging that seemed to be coming from every direction at once. She couldn’t explain it, but the sound was almost . . . rhythmic. Plus, something about it reminded her of carnival. She sighed, thinking about how she’d never get...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Children's Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593648471
• ISBN 13: 9780593648476
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 209
• Herausgeber: Oh Ellen
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland