When the Covid-19 pandemic begins, Asian-American kid Knox and his siblings are living in Hong Kong with their parents. Quickly, they decide to return to California, but their father has to stay behind for work. The family has to adjust to life in America again and Knox's mom needs to find a new job, all while dealing with racism, sibling rivalry, ADHD, and other problems as they crop up. Yang writes from a deeply personal place and the book is a call for family unity and kindness among everyone. My one quibble is that kids outside of California probably won't know what the BART is and though it's mentioned several times, I'm not sure there's enough context for them to figure it out. Luckily it's not important for the story but it adds a little local flavor for those in the know. Review from e-galley.

I liked this book a lot but not the way I loved the Front Desk series. The author based the story closely on her own family's experience, so it was fascinating to read, but I felt that some of the story lacked closure. I also wanted to know what happened with the family as Covid progressed, but that might have been too much for kids.

Kelly Yang does it again! This time, Yang invites reads to glimpse what it's like for a family coming to America during Covid, before Covid reaches the US. Told with honesty and heartfelt compassion, these characters become the kids in our neighborhoods and classrooms.

Reader, you may find this account a bit chilling having lived, so far, through this pandemic watching it unfold to epic proportions.

When the coronavirus hits Hong Kong, the Wei-Evans parents make the last-minute decision to move the family to California, where they think they will be safe from the virus. At this point there has been no cases of Covid 19 in America. The family is multiracial with an East-Asian mother and White father so the children are a mix with both features.p who experience varying degrees of racism.
Ten year old Knox is now the father figure of the family because dad, who is a lawyer, feels he must stay behind with the family’s dog, to earn money to support his family. Their mother plans to find a job in America, but as the pandemic begins to spread this is a difficult task due to the economy and fear of being around the public.

Life in America isn't easy. At Knox's new school, the other kids think that because he is from Asia, he must have brought over the virus. At home, Mom's freaking because she has no job and thus no health insurance for her and her three children.

Yang deftly portrays how racism skyrocketed during COVID. Can this family stand up to hate while finding their place in his new country? Yang’s story is grounded in realistic events of the pandemic yet she has interjected much humor into this tale of a struggling family.

Based on her own lived experience, New York Times bestselling author Kelly Yang spins a heart-warming tale of courage, hope and resilience in the face of unprecedented times.

You get to watch retrospectively the run on grocery stores where people hoarded mounds of toilet paper until a limit was instituted, the lack of protective equipment for health care workers, skyrocketing price of hand sanitizer and the lack thereof, and the people who tried to make a buck selling essential items at exorbitant prices,

Thanks to #NetGalley, Kelly Yang, and the publisher for the ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Knox feels different from his classmates in Hong Kong. When COVID hits, his mom decides to take him and his siblings to the United States to hopefully avoid COVID while their dad stays behind in Hong Kong to work. Once in California, Knox struggles being in a new school and being Asian where his classmates think he brought COVID with him.
As COVID starts to soar in the US and the world, Knox has to try and learn to stand up for what he believes in while also finding himself.

I absolutely LOVED this book and cannot wait to purchase it for my classroom. I think it will be a great read for not only my students but all students who also went through and are going through the pandemic just like Knox. As a teacher, I feel it is important that we understand how much our students have and did suffer through COVID. Just as much as adults did, if not more.
Kudos to Kelly Yang!

This book was tragically relevant. I found it difficult to complete because we are still in this pandemic. The wounds are still raw, and reading about COVID-19's origins and slow spread was tough. To see this outbreak from the point-of-view of a Chinese American family, more specifically Chinese American kids, was absolutely heartbreaking. However, the constant seed of hope this family used to keep them from falling apart gives the reader the courage to keep turning the pages. What a transparent telling of the pandemic from the Asian perspective. This story is necessary. Thank you, Kelly Yang.

What a delightful book! I loved every minute of reading this.

Knox was a perfectly flawed character. I loved how the author very realistically portrayed him in ways consistent with ADHD and also explained ADHD to the target audience of kids.

I loved his family and how they grew closer together as their situation got more and more complicated.

I pretty sparingly give out 5 stars to books I read, but this one deserves it!

Review Thanks, Netgalley for the ARC of this book. New From Here covers a wide range of topics from the beginnings of the pandemic to racism to ADHD to being separated from a parent but it is all done in a very kid-friendly manner. Having to relive the feelings of the beginning of the pandemic was a little difficult but stories like this are necessary. We all lived through those moments of panic and things being sold out and having to participate in virtual school. Ultimately this book has a great message that "love is the only vaccine for hate" and I hope it is one that readers take to heart.

I think that there are numerous students that will be able to relate to Yang's portrayal of a family during the beginning of COVID-19. I also appreciate how she gave practical strategies for young people to confront racism.

Kelly Yang captures the journey of a family at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of the highly impulsive middle brother. This would be an excellent read for any middle schooler who would be interested in processing their feelings around the early days of February and March 2020. Yang accurately captures the stress and anxiety from many people while still including fun hijinks and sibling tension. Thanks to NetGalley and Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers for an early edition.

Kelly Yang does it again. Writing a middle grade novel that is current and from her own experiences made the book so incredibly impactful. This own voices book is a must read for readers of all ages and incredibly impressive in classrooms that are continued to be impacted by covid. The relationships and challenges in this book were written spectacularly and made the reader want to know more.

As all of Yang’s books this was an enjoyable read, but it was quite long and ended abruptly without much resolution. While some of the antics were somewhat unbelievable (mom lets her kids sell anything at their garage sale then gets upset when family heirlooms and expensive earrings are sold for quarters?) It was cute but a bit over the top at times for me.

I enjoyed this look into a Chinese American families experience during the beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic. The story also weaves facets of the mom's experience as an immigrant child and the racism her parents faced when they arrived in the US. Readers who live with ADHD will also find a connection with Knox as he navigates his new school and an understanding of what makes his brain work differently than others. Helps readers see that coming together as a community is always better than treating people with hatred.

New From Here is another outstanding book by Kelly Yang. Set in late 2019/early 2020 during the beginnings of the Covid-19 pandemic, it provides an insightful perspective into the racism Asians face (especially during the pandemic), sibling relationships, ADHD challenges and more. I loved this book and can't wait to add it to my school library.

I am a huge Kelly Yang fan, and this book did NOT disappoint. I appreciated that the reader was given a completely different perspective on the pandemic. I was easily pulled into this family's everyday struggles and heartaches as they dealt with moving across the world, being separated from family members and being judged by those around them for the mere fact that they were Asian.

The family dynamics were raw and real! Well done!

Front Desk is one of my all time favorite books. I love that book and the emotions it brought out. It was so entertaining and informative at the same time. New From Here did the same thing. It addresses the issues that have come from racial discrimination from Covid in a way kids can learn from.

This was a great look into the effects of the pandemic on children and their families. Kelly Yang has a way of writing that draws you in and makes you feel connected. Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC!

Based on Kelly Yang’s family’s experience at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, this book is a window to others’ experiences. Yang deals with anti-Asian hate through the eyes of children experiencing it. This book is full of honesty and heart. I hope many adults will read this in addition to the intended middle grade audience. This is a must have for my middle school library. It’s on order now. I will enthusiastically recommend this book as I do all of Ms. Yang’s previous titles.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I received a free digital ARC from Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing via NetGalley. Ten-year-old Knox and his 2 siblings are living in Hong Kong when the virus hits, but they are US citizens. Their parents make the decision for the kids and mom to go back to the US, while dad stays at his job. What follows is a realistic account of a family that could be ostracized in Hong Kong for speaking Mandarin, but then in the US tension and racism for being from Asia. Each of the three kids settles into their new routines very differently and with their own struggles. The main character Knox also learns that he has ADHD, which is yet another hurdle for him to understand.

I loved Kelly Yang’s Front Desk series and the writing in this is just as fabulous. Yang educates in an entertaining and genuine manner that is very relatable. I found some of the actions by the parents to be a little odd – and I don’t think Knox’s relationship with ADHD is a one-size fits all model, but overall this is a timely and necessary read for young people to understand discrimination and persistence. 4.5 stars, just not quite 5.

The changes in our lives due to the coronavirus pandemic have unsettled our children, mostly because it has unsettled the adults who have never had to deal with a situation like this before. It’s been especially hard on children with Asian heritage because of the rise in anti-Asian sentiment in the US and other countries.
With these issues in mind, author Kelly Yang has crafted a story based on the challenges that her family faced when the pandemic hit. In News from Here she narrates from the perspective of 10-year-old Knox Wei-Evans, the middle child in a multiracial family whose lives are upended by the pandemic. Knox tells us that he tends to have a problem with “blurting things out,” which he later learns has been diagnosed as ADHD.
When Knox’s family decides it will be safer for him and his siblings to go back to California with their mother while their dad stays in Hong Kong, we see Knox dealing with a series of disruptions that are almost overwhelming. He has to cope with being the new kid in school, with missing his dad, with a dismissive older brother, with anxieties about coronavirus, with money worries (his mother loses her job), and with the consequences of his behavior, which leads to many scrapes. It’s a lot to deal with, and sometimes this book felt just a little bit frantic, but you could make the case that it reflects frantic times.
I want to point out here that the tone is not all focused on problems. Like other Yang books, there is quite a bit of humor and also ingenuity on the part of the children in solving various problems that come across. For instance, the three siblings want to raise money for their dad’s plane ticket, and in so doing they accidentally sell their mother’s prized earrings for 50 cents. How they work together to figure out where they are and how to get them back almost merits a book on its own, and I think children will enjoy this subplot.
It is evident that Yang has experience with anti-Asian bias in the community, and her portrayal is nuanced and realistic. Because Knox’s father is Caucasian, he doesn’t present as Asian, but he sees what happens to his Chinese-American friend who is continually tagged as “it” by the other kids at school who are playing “coronavirus tag.” Also, his older brother looks like their Chinese-American mother and comes in for more taunting and remarks that his siblings.
Another thing I found interesting is the portrayal of the mother, who is moving way outside her comfort zone trying to support her three children in a time of disruption while also dealing with money worries and trying to find a new job. She tries to keep the family together and upbeat, but sometimes she is unsure what to do, sometimes she makes mistakes, and sometimes she snaps, causing the children more anxiety. We know that she is doing her best to try to keep it all together, and it’s a good reminder that almost everyone in the family will need forgiveness when they say hurtful things in times of stress. She is allowed to be more human than most mothers in children’s books.
At times, we wonder – as the children do – if we are seeing a family, part, but in the end we see that they are all dedicated to each other with love and humor and resilience. It is a book that will help children see how to navigate challenging times.
Thanks to NetGalley which provided me a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.