Land of Broken Promises

Name: Land of Broken Promises
Brand: Harper Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Jane Kuo
ISBN: 9780063119079

Author: Jane Kuo

Narrator: Catherine Ho

Unabridged: 2 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Quill Tree Books

Published: 06/06/2023

Categories: Children's Fiction, Children's Social Themes, Children's Poetry

Synopsis

Taiwanese immigrant Anna and her family make a shocking discovery that puts their American dreams at risk in this searing companion to In the Beautiful Country, which Gene Luen Yang called “vivid and hopeful.” * A Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices List Selection *Anna’s family have settled into life in California—their small restaurant is even turning a profit. Then her parents make a shattering discovery: their visas have expired.Anna’s world is quickly overwhelmed by unfamiliar words like “undocumented.” She longs to share the towering secret that looms over every aspect of her life with a friend, but her parents strictly forbid her from telling anyone. As Anna grapples with the complexities of being undocumented, the strain that it places on her family, and the loneliness of keeping it all to herself, she has to wonder—if America is the promised land, why does everything she’s hoped for feel like a lie?Perfect for fans of Kelly Yang, Reem Faruqi, and Jasmine Warga, this middle grade novel in verse, inspired by the author’s own experiences, focuses on themes of legal documentation, identity, and language’s ability to divide and unite.

About Jane Kuo

Jane Kuo is a Chinese and Taiwanese American writer who grew up in Los Angeles in the 1980s. Jane's novels In the Beautiful Country and Land of Broken Promises are fictional stories inspired by the weekends and summers she spent working in her family's fast food restaurant. Please visit her online at janekuo.com.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Cory on January 25, 2023

This is my first Jane Kuo novel, but it won't be my last. She did a phenomenal job of writing this novel in verse, told through her experience as a young undocumented immigrant, living in California. "Anna" is her American name; however, Ai Shi, (in which Ai means love and Shi means poetry), writes......more

Goodreads review by Leah on June 08, 2023

This is a sweet follow up to the Beautiful Country. I am a sucker for middle grade books in verse too. My only 'complaint' which falls under a subjective reading taste, is the plots of this one and the previous one are more like slices of life with no discernible story arc and resolution. Which is r......more

Goodreads review by Anniek on April 12, 2023

I think I liked this one even more than the previous installment. I don't think there's enough historical middlegrade being published, especially with topics that are still so relevant today. While this is a very quick read due to it being written in verse and it having a low page count, there's sti......more

Goodreads review by Stacie on April 20, 2023

They say what you read and who you enter into relationships with will affect who you become in five years. I stared working in case management 7 years ago—half way through my masters program for global public health nursing. I had my eyes opened to so many things during that time. Those experiences......more

Goodreads review by Jenn ~ Smalltown Bookworm on August 17, 2023

Listened to the audiobook because it was currently the shortest on my TBR. Glad I did. This was a beautifully written middle-grade novel. Written in verse, so it reminds me a bit of Inside Out And Back Again. Similar subjects too, but instead the family grapples with the complexities of being undocu......more