Dream, Annie, Dream

Waka T Brown's Dream, Annie, Dream is a heartfelt story for 9 year olds about a Japanese American girl who wants to be the star of the show.

What happens

It's the summer of 1987 in Topeka, Kansas. Aoi Inoue is twelve and has just decided to be called Annie. Hardly anyone says Aoi properly anyway (it's only three syllables, Ah-Oh-Ee, and she can't understand what the fuss is about).

She's at summer theatre camp with her best friend Jessica, who has also just decided she's not Jessie any more. Then the new community theatre announces its summer show. It's Annie! Both girls know every song. Both girls want the lead.

At home Mum speaks Japanese, little brother Tak face-plants into the sofa, and Dad shoots hoops with Annie in the street and tells her she can be anything she wants to be. Mum isn't so sure. From the stairs, Annie hears her say she doesn't look anything like Annie.

That moment really stings. It's the kind of thing a child isn't meant to overhear, and you feel it right along with her.

The audition chapter is brilliant. The blinding lights, the kind old piano player, the grumpy Hollywood director whose idea of high praise is "Nice". Then Jessica walks on in a frizzy red wig and a ragged cardigan, looking exactly like Little Orphan Annie. Is it OK to feel jealous of your best friend, just for a moment?

That's what the book does so well. Annie is funny and dreamy and very honest about the little mean thoughts she's ashamed of. Later, back at school, some of her classmates grumble that the play's Asian characters are the only reason she was cast, and she sets out to prove them wrong.

Dad also explains how America once shut out people who looked like him, in a long tangent Annie admits her mind wanders through. It's gently done, and it might start a good conversation.

There's a little mild language from the grown-ups, and Annie calls her brother a butt-head (he deserves it).

If your reader has a best friend who's also their biggest rival, or a name people keep getting wrong, this will feel very real.

What to read next

For more from Waka T Brown, While I Was Away follows another Japanese American girl from Kansas, Waka, whose parents send her to Tokyo for five months to live with a grandmother she hardly knows.