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Informationen zum Autor Mae Respicio writes novels full of hope and heart. Her debut, The House That Lou Built, received the Asian/Pacific American Library Association Honor Award in Children's Literature and was an NPR Best Book of the Year. She's also the author of the acclaimed Any Day With You and How to Win a Slime War. Klappentext Making friends in a new city, and new country, is hard for twelve-year-old Isabel, but joining the gardening and cooking club at school helps her find her way. Told in verse format. Leseprobe Home I walk with my grandfather through a thousand shades of green plants dressed in dew flowers flooded in light as birds fill the trees with their wild loud songs. Our garden comes alive in mornings. Lolo drags a hose the water trickling slow. We pause at a planter of Jasmine Sampaguita. Weeks ago when I found out I’d have to say goodbye he made me plant it So when you return you’ll see how it’s grown, he said. Jasmine Sampaguita takes up most of this space. Rows of shrubs like fences small white flowers perfuming the air with their sweet lush musk. But we hover over mine concerned leaves wilted brittle brown stems. No blossoms here. I crouch down. What’s wrong, little Jazzy? I ask, almost expecting a reply. Plants respond to humans our voice, our love. It’s why I name and talk to some of ours: Elvis Parsley and Vincent van Grow, my favorite, the Spice Girls (a cluster of herbs named after a music group my friends and I dance to when we play our CDs). Should I have grown it in the ground? Or in a different pot? Or . . . something? I ask my grandfather. I don’t know what to do. You should trust. It’s just a little thirsty. Jasmine Sampaguita has gifted my family our livelihood by learning the art of growing and selling. Its blooms are our survival. I know its petals soft and white. I know its smell without it near but I don’t know why this one looks how I feel —homesick heartsick— when I haven’t even left for California yet. I sigh. Feeling nervous for your trip, Isabel? If I don’t like it there, can I come home? To my surprise he nods. But only for visits. Tricked! Lolo raises my chin so our eyes meet. Sumpa kita sounds like sampaguita. It stands for I promise you. And I promise you will do fine in your new home. He lays the hose slips it a drip saying something I’ve already heard many times, my whole life. We bloom where we are planted. Don’t Want to Say It Goodbyes look like summer in my small town green hills and rice fields my best friends and I strolling toward home. Goodbyes sound like chattering about school and friends how next year we all turn thirteen —though they’ll be here and I’ll be elsewhere. Goodbyes taste like tart calamansi from Lolo’s tree round, small, and green that Lola’s slicing and squeezing into drinks for me, Cristina, and Rosamie. Ice clinks glasses sweat we take slow sips and our lips pucker from the sweet and the sour. Goodbyes smell like sampaguita flowers Lola’s picked and strung piled high on the table in soft pearly mounds. Bye, Lola! See you tomorrow, Isabel! my friends say. Lola waves back and drapes a single jasmine garland around my neck th...
