Front Desk 5 – Top Story

Kelly Yang's Top Story is a big-hearted Front Desk book for 11 year olds about Mia Tang getting her shot at a real newspaper.

What happens

Mia has won a place at a winter journalism camp run by a famous paper in San Francisco. She's staying in Chinatown with her mum and her best friend Lupe, in a little inn run by an elderly couple who are struggling to keep it going.

She arrives buzzing with story ideas. Then she walks into the newsroom and finds out she's the youngest camper there by miles.

The others have laptops, briefcases and very famous relatives. One boy's grandfather is a legendary writer, and he gets handed a story without even pitching one. Mia has a notebook, a pen in her bun and no laptop at all. And then she overhears an editor calling the scholarship kids "soft".

You'll want to cheer her on SO much. Anyone who's ever felt like the new kid who doesn't quite belong will get it straight away.

It's not just about the newspaper, though. Lupe is heartbroken after telling a girl on her maths team that she likes her, and getting a really unkind answer back. It's handled with lots of care. Mia is also keeping a crush very quiet (she's absolutely NOT telling Lupe who it is).

Chinatown itself is half the fun. A fortune-cookie factory where you can write your own fortunes, boba tea, lion dancing to look forward to. Mia meets a girl called Emma who works three jobs with her mum to save up for a better home. That makes Mia think hard about who actually gets time to relax.

Lupe is thirteen, so crushes and first heartbreak are part of the story. It's all very gentle.

This one comes later in the series, and the earlier books really do build up to it. If your reader hasn't met Mia before, start with Front Desk.

What to read next

For another young reporter who won't give up, try Ajay and the Mumbai Sun. Ajay sells newspapers at a Mumbai railway station and dreams of being a journalist more than anything.