Author: Laurence Yep
Category: Book by Author Laurence Yep
Bravo, Mia! is part of the American Girl series in the contemporary fiction section. It’s the story of eleven year old Mia St. Clair, who faces numerous stumbling blocks on her journey to compete at the Regional figure skating competition. Mia’s family is struggling financially just as Mia realizes she has outgrown her skates and her dress. To compound the problem, Mia’s mother broke her leg and reports that she is unable to work for a few weeks – the very day the family’s furnace goes out. The parents call a family meeting and explain to Mia and her three older brothers that they face a difficult decision. Both Mia and her oldest brother Perry are looking forward to upcoming competitions. Mia has worked hard to represent her skate club at the regional competition. Perry is also looking forward to traveling with his hockey team to a tournament. With finances as they are, the family can only afford one of these trips. So, they allow the “Coin of Destiny” to decide. They essentially flip a coin to determine which child gets to go – Mia to regionals or Perry to the hockey tournament. The coin favors Perry and Mia handles the loss with grace and class. What Mia’s family lacks in money, they more than make up for in love. Mia’s whole family feels very badly for her, especially Perry – who won the coin toss. It doesn’t take long until fate smiles on Mia as friends rally around her, donating material for a new dress and buying her a nice pair of used skates. Mia gets to attend the competition and she has renewed confidence. While at the competition, Mia and her best friend Anya end up sharing their room with snobby Vanessa due to a reservation mix-up. This is a classic contrast of the girl who is poor, but has a wonderful relationship with her family against the girl who has all the material things she could want, but isn’t a priority to her parents. In the end, Mia also has to summon the courage to face a really good, but haughty up-and-coming skater at the competition. Mia performs well and finishes in fourth – a nice showing for her first regionals. Mia is met with the cheers and congratulations of her whole family. This is a nice story that probably has great appeal to girls in upper elementary school. Mia keeps a great attitude throughout the whole story and is an excellent role model for little girls. This book seems to follow the cookie-cutter pattern of other books in this genre. Other American Girl books in the contemporary fiction section include stories of girls who overcome obstacles to pursue their dreams of dancing, surfing, and exploring. Laurence Yep also authored another book in this series entitled Mia about this same character learning to figure skate. Laurence Yep is a respected Asian American author who has written numerous children’s books, including Newbery Honor Books Dragonwings and Dragon’s Gate. Many of his books feature Asian American characters, so this story about the American “the girl next door” type of character seems to deviate from his typical type of book, like the Golden Mountain Chronicles and Chinatown Mysteries. Published in 2008, this is one of his more recent books. The brief biography in the back stated that Yep is a big fan of figure skating. It’s interesting to see how an author’s work changes and evolves along with the author.
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