Liu, Jennie. Red Car to Hollywood, The. Lerner/Carolrhoda Lab, 03/2025. 245pp. Fiction. Trade $19.99. 978-1-7284-9321-3. GRADES 9–12. HIGH ADDITIONAL.
Teen Ruby Chan’s story is set in the spring and summer of 1924 in Los Angeles, where Ruby helps out at her parents’ shop that sells Chinese furniture and antiques. To her shock and dismay, her parents find out she has been dating a fellow high school student who is white, so they threaten to make her accept an arranged marriage. Hoping to move out on her own, she gets a job at a department store where she is sexually harassed by her boss, but she befriends movie star Anna May Wong and Wong’s brother, who own a nearby laundry. Mixing Hollywood history and romance, this first-person novel from a female Chinese American perspective shows the gap between immigrant parents and their American-born children. A unique YA novel that many readers with immigrant parents will relate to. Includes California-specific content.
Penny Peck—San José State University iSchool