Clouds over California

Karyn Parsons's Clouds over California is a warm, honest family story for 10 year olds about a girl whose whole world shifts in a single school year.

What happens

Stevie Morrison is starting sixth grade at a new school across town. Her family has moved to a new apartment, and nobody asked her what she thought.

Home isn't right either. The book opens with Stevie hiding round a corner at night while her parents shout at each other in the kitchen. Her mum wants to take a couple of college classes. Her dad won't hear of it.

School is hard in its own way. Stevie is late on her first day and gets put at a desk front and centre. She's one of only two Black kids in the class. When the rain undoes her braids, a crowd of children grab and pat her hair like it's a toy. It's a horrible scene, and you feel every second of it with her.

Jennifer, her best friend from the old street, won't come to the phone. Then comes the news that her teenage cousin Naomi, who ran away from home in Boston, is coming to live with them. (Stevie is NOT convinced she wants a big sister.)

Being inside Stevie's head is the joy of this book. She's funny and sharp about everyone around her, from the "Overbite Lady" in the school office to the teacher who introduces her as a "new victim". After that awful first day, she dresses up in her mum's wigs and sequins. Who hasn't wanted to put on something glamorous and forget a rotten day?

Naomi turns out to open Stevie's eyes to a lot she's never paid attention to, including the Black Panthers and women's lib. It's a story about a family in the middle of change and a girl starting to see the world a bit more clearly.

It's worth saying that the grown-up worries are real ones. There are rows at home, a dad with very old-fashioned ideas about what women should do, racist teasing at school and an uncle who died the year before (that's backstory). Nothing is frightening, but a child whose parents argue a lot may find some pages close to home.

What to read next

If your reader connects with Stevie, Finally Seen by Kelly Yang is another story about a girl arriving in California to start again, with plenty of complicated feelings about her own parents.