But as the parade passes by and fireworks light the sky, she learns a surprising lesson. Chodos-Irvine deploys sharply defined objects in a range of colors and patterns to construct harmonious, forthright compositions that will likely prove inviting to readers of many backgrounds. Shocked that her parents are cooking Chinese food to sell in the family store on an all-American holiday, a feisty Chinese American girl tries to tell her mother and father how things really are. The well-paced text-heavily freighted at the beginning and swift by the end-reflects the girl's changing emotions and moods. 'My parents do not understand all American things,' she reminds herself, 'They were not born here.' But the evening brings a steady stream of patrons, and the holiday concludes with the family watching fireworks (invented by the Chinese) and eating-what else?-apple pie. 'No one wants Chinese food on the Fourth of July,' she tries to explain, and her prediction seems right as the afternoon lengthily unfolds with almost no customers. Hearing the 'boom, boom, boom' of the approaching parade, sniffing the apple pie baking in a neighbor's oven, she is distracted by the cooking smells from the store's kitchen, where her parents are preparing chow mein and sweet-and-sour pork. Readers first encounter the unnamed narrator as she looks unhappily out the glass door of her parents' market, open for business even on the Fourth of July. Return for this carefully honed story about a girl's experience as a first-generation Chinese-American.

Apple Pie 4th of July by Janet S. Wong