A Thousand Questions

Sometimes your own family is full of strangers

Mimi knows very little about the Asian side of her Pakistani American family, and she’s not particularly eager to learn more.  She’s more concerned with contacting her absent father, who disappeared abruptly from her life many years before.  So, when her artist mother tells her they are going to be spending the summer with Mimi’s grandparents in Karachi, the Texas tween is not happy.  In fact, when the mother and daughter pair arrive in the Pakistan capital, Mimi wants to return home immediately.  The noise, the smells, the chaos of a political campaign, and the relentless heat seem overwhelmingly alien.

But it becomes a season of discovery.  Not only does Mimi grow closer to her extended family, she befriends Samira, a poor girl who works as a scullery maid in her wealthy grandparents’ kitchen.  Though the two girls initially have little in common – their relationship begins because of Samira’s desire to improve her English skills - Mimi comes to admire Samira’s gritty determination to improve her life, and even finds herself a bit envious of Samira’s close-knit and loving family.  For Samira’s part, she learns that not all Westerners are rich, crass clothes horses.

Faruqi is also author of the charming “Yasmin” series for beginning readers, which highlights the everyday adventures of a much younger Pakistani American girl.