Ghosts, Toast, and Other Hazards

Gr 4-8–Mo is haunted by the fallout of her mother’s messy divorce, and by a minor toaster fire which symbolizes, in a way, the fiery finale of their peaceful life. As this novel begins, Mo is starting school in a new town, living with her “Chinese hippie” uncle, caring for five-year-old sister Cece, and nervously monitoring her profoundly depressed mother’s own shaky adjustment to their upheaval. On top of it all, Mo begins to have hazy dreams about a sad-eyed elephant. With quirky classmate Nathaniel, a self-proclaimed ghost expert, they dig into the elephant’s well-documented local history and dramatic death. Their discoveries lead them to explore the conflicted heritage of New Warren, a town with a whitewashed self-image, built through the work of Black Americans and economically buoyed by Chinese laborers. Tan’s prose captures Mo’s preteen mindset perfectly, wavering between profound anxiety and bravery, and bordering on carelessness. The elephant-ghost exorcism Mo and Nathaniel undertake illuminates their interior experiences of complex grief, and the culmination of their quest weaves the threads of the multi-pronged narrative into a hard, hopeful conclusion. Mo and family are Chinese American, Nathaniel is white and Jewish, and the archival librarian that moves their quest forward is Black. Mo’s supportive, thoughtful Uncle Ray is queer, and Mo decides to ask a girl on a date in the book’s conclusion.