Pippa Park Raises her Game by Erin Yun 4.5/5

Korean American middle schooler Pippa Park gets a basketball scholarship that moves her from public Victoria Middle school in Massachusetts to Lakeview Private. The *only* stipulation is that she have, and keep, a 3.0 GPA. She immediately wants to impress “The Royals” (AKA the popular girls) and hides parts of herself to be more like them. Pippa is ashamed of her humble upbringing and doesn’t want her new Lakeview friends to see her tiny apartment, her bossy sister Mina or Mina’s hardworking lovable husband, Jung-Hwa. She also tries to hide the fact that they own and work at a laundromat in town.

This was a great story about being thankful where you came from. There were A LOT of harder words in this book for my 9 year old. Every other paragraph Coco had questions about what a certain word meant. Annoying for me, but educational for her HA! It says best for ages 9-12 but maybe closer to 11-12 I think since they talk about crushes and stuff. I rate it 4.5/5 and Coco rated it 5/5. We can’t wait to read the sequel!