#MDR Troublemaker

For this months Mother Daughter review we chose Troublemaker. We wanted to pick a book that had representation for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) heritage month that is celebrated this month of May.

We are also continuing with our “low key” buddy read with it. Basically anyone who wants to join reads the book at their own pace and posts on IG using this months #mdrmay22 with their thoughts on the book. I will comment on that post and also share on my stories. So easy!

Title: Troublemaker
Author: John Cho & Sarah Suk
Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers
Publish Date: March 22, 2022
Page Length: 224
Genre: Historical Fiction
Recommended reading age: Middle Grade
Representation: Korean American

Summary:

Troublemaker follows the events of the LA Riots through the eyes of 12-year-old Jordan as he navigates school and family. This book will highlight the unique Korean American perspective.

12-year-old Jordan feels like he can’t live up to the example his older sister set, or his parent’s expectations. When he returns home from school one day hoping to hide his suspension, Los Angeles has reached a turning point. In the wake of the acquittal of the police officers filmed beating Rodney King, as well as the shooting of a young black teen, Latasha Harlins by a Korean store owner, the country is at the precipice of confronting its racist past and present. 

As tensions escalate, Jordan’s father leaves to check on the family store, spurring Jordan and his friends to embark on a dangerous journey to come to his aide, and come to terms with the racism within and affecting their community.

*Content Warning: Guns, mentions of rioting, police brutality, murder, and arson. The plot is about a boy who’s hiding a gun in his backpack he wants to take to his father’s convenience store during the LA riots in order to provide him protection from looting.

Her review:

Troublemaker is a great book. It has a well-written storyline, great characters, and a well-developed plot. It’s fun, exciting and fast-paced. My favorite part has to be the end, where everything resolves for Jordan, Appa, Umma, and even Mike. They all come to an agreement and settle things between each other. My least favorite part was the description of the Big Fight, the big argument between Jordan and Appa. It was intense, and definitely not happy. Regardless, the overall story is really good and fun to read.

My review:

I’ll start this out by saying that for such a short book it deals with several serious topics. I think it does so in a clear way, without skirting around them. It’s very common to think that middle grade books only focus on fantasy, but many historical and contemporary fiction books deal with many important issues and this one did it in a great way.

Some of the important topics this one touched on were immigration. The immigrants experience and that of the kids, the family expectations and dealing with them. Jordan expresses his concern of not living up to his parents expectations of him, much of his internal conflict is him dealing with his own feeling of failing his family.

Jordan and his family are from Korea, and the book uses some korean words as well as mentions several customs, foods and his experience as an immigrant.

Another topic that is very central to the story is violence. The story takes place around the events of the park 1992 LA riots, that came about from protest of police brutality. The topic is discussed on several occasions and the underlying sentiment is that of what is the cause of the violence and why are people responding in such a way.

Jordan worries about his father. The central plot is Jordan deciding to take his father’s gun and bring it to his family’s shop. His decision to help him, while coming from a good place, takes a dangerous turn. Over and over he makes what we as readers think are bad choices. As a parent I couldn’t help but worry deeply about what will happen to him.

In the end, Jordan finally accepts he has made many bad choices, and owns up to them and from each of these, Jordan later finds a lesson. By confronting his sister and father and admitting his mistakes he takes the first step to mend the breaks in his relationship with his family. He also has a great realization that he is not entirely bad, or his sister is entirely good. That a good person can make bad choices but that doesn’t have to define who he is.

Finally, even though the events in the book take place 30 years ago, they are contemporary to today’s situations. It is a great discussion starter in regards to sadly frequent events of police brutality, protests as a response to them. Also about gun ownership and the responsibility that entails.

Thanks for reading our review. We hope you can join us with this book and others in the following months!