Yee, Paul. What happened this summer.

YEE, Paul. What happened this summer. Tradewind Books, dist. by Orca. 178p. c2006. 1-896580-88-2. $10.95. JS

In nine short stories, Chinese Canadian teen characters--boys, girls, Canadian-born, newly immigrated--provide an elegantly diversified sense of what coming of age can mean to those who are bicultural. Yee does a compelling job of speaking as a young girl concerned about her gay brother's acceptance in the church community; a brash young man who finds himself with a wife and infant son; another girl who, when dating a white boy, becomes disillusioned by his interest in Asian cultures; and other youth. The adults in these stories range from the fatuous to those who hold not only readers' sympathies but those of their own teenaged children. Most of the stories are set in Toronto, but the China from which their families have come includes both Hong Kong and the mainland. In one tale, two teens are amazed to find that the tunnels they've heard of being beneath downtown Toronto aren't nuclear war bunkers but familiar-looking shopping malls. In another, a mysterious girl seems to appear among groups of friends as a foretelling of fatal car accidents each clique then suffers. These stories are accessible and engaging across ethnic and cultural lines. Yee's teens are not only credible; they will stick with readers just as Salinger's Glass family has. Francisca Goldsmith, Libn., Berkeley PL, Berkeley, CA

S--Recommend for senior high school students.

A--Recommend for advanced students and adults. This code will help librarians and teachers working in high schools where there are honors and advanced placement students. This also will help KLIATT's usefulness in public libraries.