Cilla Lee-Jenkins : future author extraordinaire / Susan Tan ; illustrated by Dana Wulfekotte.

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"Meeting Cilla felt like making a new best friend." --Grace Lin, bestselling author of Newbery Honor book Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

Priscilla "Cilla" Lee-Jenkins is on a tight deadline. Her baby sister is about to be born, and Cilla needs to become a bestselling author before her family forgets all about her. So she writes about what she knows best--herself! Stories from her bestselling memoir, Cilla Lee-Jenkins: Future Author Extraordinaire, include:

- How she dealt with being bald until she was five
- How she overcame her struggles with reading
- How family traditions with her Grandma and Grandpa Jenkins and her Chinese grandparents, Nai Nai and Ye Ye, are so different

Debut author Susan Tan has written a novel bursting with love and humor, as told through a bright, irresistible biracial protagonist who will win your heart and make you laugh.

A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2017
2017 Asian Pacific American Library Association Honor Book

Author Notes

Susan Tan has lived many places in her life, but calls Concord, Massachusetts, home. She grew up in a mixed-race family, and, like Cilla Lee-Jenkins, had very little hair until the age of five. After graduating from Williams College, she earned her PhD from the University of Cambridge, where she studied children's literature. She currently lives in Somerville, enjoys frequent trips to Chinatown to eat tzuck sang, and teaches at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Susan has also written Cilla Lee-Jenkins: This Book Is a Classic.

Dana Wulfekotte is a children's book author, illustrator, and animator. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and lives in Queens with her boyfriend and two rabbits (whom she now regrets not naming Supernova and Sparkledust).
Dana's artwork can be seen in books like The Remember Balloons, Rabbit & Possum & Cilla Lee-Jenkins: This Book Is A Classic.

Reviews (4)

School Library Journal Review

Gr 3-5-Eight-and-a-half-year-old Priscilla Lee-Jenkins (aka Cilla) has big plans. She knows that her destiny is to be a world-famous author when she grows up, and is practicing by sharing her life story (so far) with readers. Tan writes in a fun and spunky voice that brings to mind favorite characters such as Junie B. Jones, Ramona Quimby, and Fancy Nancy but is still all her own. Cilla is biracial, Chinese and white, and has a lot of feelings about where she fits into her family. She sometimes worries about being "too Chinese" for her white grandparents and "too white" for her Chinese grandparents, and she is acutely aware that both sets of grandparents, while all a big part of her life, tend to stay separate from each other. She also experiences microaggressions from some adults who ask her questions like, "Where are you from?" and "What are you?," particularly while she is with the white side of her family. No one in Cilla's family really understands what it is like to be her, and while that bothers her, she is not looking forward to sharing her family-or anything else-with the new baby who is on the way. VERDICT Highly recommended for school and public libraries. Readers will identify with Cilla and wish they were friends with her in real life.-Heather Webb, Worthington Libraries, OH © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Horn Book Review

The only child of a white mother and Chinese American father, eight-and-a-half-year-old Cilla is not thrilled by their announcement that she is going to have a sibling. Worried that this new arrival, whom she calls The Blob, will cause her family to ignore her, Cilla decides to write a bestseller before the birth that will maintain her top status in the family. A good part of Cillas life involves her grandparents, whom she sees weekly--her mothers parents on Saturdays and her fathers on Wednesdays. While most of Cillas observations are lighthearted ones of daily life along the lines of other spunky girls in childrens books (Ramona, Clementine, et al.), she also puzzles through her own identity as a mixed-race child (especially when experiencing microaggressions: she responds to a strangers What are you, exactly? with Iam a future author extraordinaire) and her grandparents discomfort with one another because of race. Happily, the book ends on a hopeful note as the little sisters birth predictably brings the two sets of grandparents together. Although adult readers may need to suspend disbelief at some of the sophisticated comments and references coming from this very young writer, Cillas liveliness, vulnerability, and thoughtfulness make her an endearing and entertaining narrator. Winsome black-and-white illustrations are scattered throughout this good-hearted book. monica edinger (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Review

An aspiring author grapples with change in her family. Cilla Lee-Jenkins, age 8 and in second grade, has a set of white grandparents, the Jenkinses, whom she sees on Thursdays when her parents work late, and a set of Chinese-American grandparents, the Lees, whom she sees on Wednesdays when her parents go out to eat. Her mom's expecting a baby Cilla calls The Blob. Cilla plans to be an author, and this debut novel purports to be her journal, in which she describes not only what is happening to her nowdreading the new baby and unhappy that the two sets of grandparents don't get alongbut tells several stories from her younger days in preschool and kindergarten. This creates a problem. While Cilla's voice is clever, her stories, attitude, and problems are all those of a far younger child than one who could write such a sophisticated account. The heart of the storyCilla's disappointment that her sister's birth unites the family in ways hers did notis glossed over, and while Cilla's unhappiness about the new baby feels unrealistically extreme, so too does the speed with which it disappears. Tan, who grew up in a mixed-race family, does a lovely job of showing how Cilla finds joy in both sides of her heritage. Wulfekotte's soft, black-and-white illustrations appear every few pages. In the end, this book is too difficult for most of the 7-year-old readers who would like Cilla and features too young a protagonist to interest 10-year-olds ready for books of this length. (Fiction. 7-10) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Eight-year-old Cilla Lee-Jenkins is destined for literary greatness. She is up against the clock to get her best-selling memoir written before the arrival of her new baby sister aka The Blob causes everyone in her family to forget about her. A few pages spent with this exuberant, guileless narrator is evidence that no one will be forgetting Cilla anytime soon. She loves stories, and the highs and lows of her own experiences make for an animated memoir. Prolonged baldness, a taste for snails, and the slings and arrows of friendship are all part of her joyful narrative. When Cilla talks about her burgeoning realization that she is a biracial child in a society that is trying to label her, and that there is distance within her own family between her Chinese grandparents and her Caucasian grandparents, her introspection on the matter, and how it concerns her without completely derailing her, will hearten readers. Occasional black-and-white illustrations enhance the text, and Cilla's empathy, candor, and skill at turning a phrase indicate that her claim to be a future author extraordinaire is completely justified. As she says, My book is over, but my writing isn't. Anyone who spends time with Cilla Lee-Jenkins will look forward to reading her in the future.--Dean, Kara Copyright 2017 Booklist

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