Description: After two years in the States, part of Jin-Ha feels American, but the rest of her is definitely Korean. Though she's learned to love hotdogs, spaghetti, and pizza, Jin-Ha still craves the spicy, garlicky food of Korea, and many American customs remain as alien to her as the unruly mob of junior high hockey players that her friend Maggie insists are "fabuloso." Jin-Ha's father, a scholar in Korea, now works for a car mechanic. Jin-Ha's mother has no one to talk to all day and often seems sad. Jin-Ha knows that shaky English is all that prevents her mother from meeting people, and she hasn't forgotten the sensation of listening to sounds she'd never heard before, struggling to twist her own mouth to make them. In fact, Jin-Ha feels a little of that same bewilderment now, in her honors math class, where her teacher seems hostile and her grades are plummeting. Will a well-intentioned lie-one meant to shelter her parents from her own mounting troubles at school-backfire and cause far more harm than good? Or will Jin-Ha find a real solution to her problems, one that could help her entire family?

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