Mimi is second-generation Chinese and growing up in inner-city Melbourne. She feels more Australian than Chinese, and hates being teased by the other kids about the way she looks and what she eats. But through the gift of a magical box of pastels, Mimi learns to reconcile the two cultures and accept who she is. Ages 11+.

Reviews

Gr 4-6-Mimi Lu, 12, is a Chinese-Australian schoolgirl who experiences racial slurs and is called Smelly-Loo by her classmates, who make fun of what she brings for lunch. Her father's work as a traditional herbalist solidifies the cultural divide. He takes an extended trip to visit a dying relative at the same time that a sympathetic teacher gives Mimi a box of mysterious Empress Cassia Pastels, and her life changes overnight. Mrs. Lu opens a pop-up teahouse in her husband's absence, and Mimi begins to draw strangely compelling sidewalk art. The garden in the title is a magical place in Chinese legend. In the hands of a chosen few, it is a living piece of art that can be entered into through good or evil. The good return transformed by the experience, but the evil do not return. When mean girl Gemma steals the pastels, she discovers the negative side of the magic they contain. Some generic race-against-time plot twists finish up the story, which includes a popular boy who becomes a fast friend for Mimi, and her father returning from his trip gentler and more accepting of Western ways. The descriptions of the garden and the author's drawings of the places within it offer readers an opportunity to flex their own imaginations.-Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick's Catholic School, Charlotte, NC (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.