Front Desk 2 – Three Keys

Kelly Yang's Three Keys is the second Front Desk book, a warm, punchy story for 10 year olds about a girl who helps run a motel in California.

What happens

Mia Tang is starting sixth grade, and her family now own the Calivista Motel, together with a group of friends who invested. (How they got there is the first book's story.) She works the front desk with her best friend Lupe. The weeklies, the regulars who live at the motel, are basically family. When the motel sign turns up in the background of a news story about a lost dog, Hank climbs up and adds AS SEEN ON TV. The next morning there's a queue at the front office before school.

But there's an election on, and the TV is full of ads blaming immigrants. A new law called Proposition 187 would stop children without papers going to school. Mia's new teacher wears the governor's campaign badge and snaps at her for speaking out of turn. Two girls in the school toilets say you can always spot "illegals" by their accents. Mia lifts her feet so they can't see her under the door.

Mia narrates and she's wonderful. She's stubborn and funny and she can't keep her mouth shut when something's unfair. (She calls it "goatscaping" out loud in class, bless her.) She writes letters for new immigrants at the motel's weekly classes, and she argues her way through everything.

Home is funny and real too. Her mum gives haircuts with a bowl. Her parents bicker about whether a credit card is an American trap. Her dad worries she's forgetting China.

Something to be aware of. Racism is what this book is about, and it shows up in lots of forms. A newspaper won't sell Hank an advert because of the colour of his skin. Some new arrivals who crossed the desert talk about a friend who didn't make it. A few grown-ups say cruel things out loud. It's done honestly and never gratuitously, but a child who's heard those words aimed at them may find it hard.

It's also full of hope. The motel community really does look after each other. If your reader cares loudly about fairness, they'll feel Mia is on their side.

What to read next

For more from Kelly Yang, try Finally Seen. Lina is ten and flying from Beijing to Los Angeles to live with the parents and little sister she hasn't seen for five years.