From the book’s dustjacket: “Born in Pakistan to Baptist missionaries…Jonathan S. Addleton crossed the borders of race, culture, class, and religion from an early age. [This book] combines family history, social observation, current events, and deeply personal commentary to tell an unusual coming-of-age story that has much to do with the intersection of cultures as it does with one man’s life.”
The author writes with humor and deep affection of his childhood in Pakistan, his education at Muree Christian School, and his relationships with family and friends.
If you are looking for a light, uplifting book, this is not the one to choose. While beautifully-written, it is a sad, even tragic, story about Sarina, a 12-year old American girl living in Liberia. Sarina’s father, busy with his business responsibilities in other parts of the country, leaves her alone to care for her mother, a woman whose severe diabetes leaves her both physically frail and emotionally unstable. Fearful of losing her daughter, Sarina’s mother ties Sarina to the mango tree in their yard. When the lonely Sarina meets Boima, a young Liberian boy, she keeps their friendship a secret for fear her mother will prevent her from seeing him. Through their friendship she learns about the Liberian life beyond her own yard – both its joys and its tragic sorrows. Although the book is labeled as being for age 10 and up, its content seems more appropriate for slightly older readers.
This is a fictional story about a British MK attending elementary school at Chefoo School in Malaysia in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It’s written as reflections of her school experiences and adventures in Malaysia since she is about to start a new boarding school in England.
In this sequel to Homesick, Jean tells of her return to China, 55 years after leaving. Feeling as if she had truly come home, she visits her old house, church and school, speaks Chinese again, and introduces her husband, Michael, to the country she had loved as a child. She also finds she needs to adjust to the changes that decades of communist rule brought to her beloved China. In spite of the changes in her hometown of Wuhan, Jean is given a precious gift when she is made an honorary citizen of her childhood hometown.
Jean Fritz draws readers into the stories of her childhood in China in the chaotic 1920s. She tells stories of the bond with her nurse Nai-Nai , her mother’s grief, and her longing for a homeland in the USA that she hasn’t actually ever seen. This recounting of 2 years of her childhood may not seem enough so there is also a sequel too– China homecoming. And though this is written as junior fiction, it will appeal to adults too.
TCKs are notorious for hating the question “Where are you from?” Such a mobile childhood, surrounded by others moving all the time as well, can make it difficult to belong to one place or group of people. These TCKs were asked about their own experience of home and where they feel they belong.
How many homes have you lived in?
Where are you from?
Where do you consider home?
Where do you fit in best?
How has your sense of home changed over the years?
