Something about America

By Maria Testa
Genre: Realistic fiction

THE AUTHOR: Maria Testa is the author of 9 Novels including Becoming Joe Dimaggio, Almost Forever and Baseball Crazy. She was born in Connecticut and now lives in Portland, Maine, where this book takes place.

THE STORY: in this book starts of with her at 13 living in Kosova with a war that lasted a year, from 1998 to 1999. Maria, her mother and father disided to move to the united states where they thought they would feel safe.

Maria wears a scarf around her neck everyday for one reason. Now that shes been in Amarica for awhile she consiters herself an amarican school girl. happy to blend into eighth grade with her friends. But her parents, seeking a new life in Maine was not a choice but they thought it was necesary, it was a way to escape from a war and find medical care for there daughter. While her parents still talk about "home" and continue to feel like foreigners ten years later, their daughter is torn between the guilt about their displacement and pride in her new identity. Then a hateful event changes everything, stirring passions throughout the entire region and forcing residents old and new to re-examine what it means to be an amarican.