Everything Asian

You're twelve years old. A month has passed since your Korean Air flight landed at lovely Newark Airport. Your fifteen-year-old sister is miserable. Your mother isn't exactly happy, either. You're seeing your father for the first time in five years, and although he's nice enough, he might be, well--how can you put this delicately?--a loser.
You can't speak English, but that doesn't stop you from working at East Meets West, your father's gift shop in a strip mall, where everything is new.
Welcome to the wonderful world of David Kim.


Set it a New Jersey suburb in the early 1980s, "Everything Asian" is narrated by David Kim, whose family has just been reunited in America. David's relates the dramedy of his family's first year together in the United States with humor and pathos. His observations extend to Peddlers Town, the rundown, struggling shopping mall where his parents have a store. The family faces competition at the mall; they literally have to fight fire; they attempt to befriend Americans. They celebrate a birthday at a bowling alley and cook a turkey on Thanksgiving. Through it all, the Kims try to understand what it means to be a family in their new country. " After five years of separation, Dae Joon (soon to be David), his sister In Sook (soon to be Susan), and their mother arrive from Korea to be reunited with their near-stranger of a father. The family, who together run an Asian import gift shop in a small New Jersey mall, must somehow re-establish their relationships with one another. Alternately painful and funny--and sometimes both--Woo perfectly captures the disorientation of a young boy caught amidst difficult family dynamics, negotiating a strange new world filled with both loss and discovery . . . Highly recommended."--Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program
"A tender, funny, beautifully written novel-in-stories, each a sparkling step in the coming-of-age journey of a boy straddling two cultures with remarkable humor and grace. First-time author Sung Woo has created both lasting characters and a timeless portrait of a community."--A. Manette Ansay, author of "Vinegar Hill" and "Blue Water".