F Is for Fabuloso Book

The Sky had not yet begun to lighten, and Jin-Ha could see hard fingers of frost pressing on her window, outlined by the light from the streetlamp. She wanted to stay in her warm bed and never come out. Being cold-and knowing you were going to be even colder before you got any warmer—was the worst feeling. Then she remembered her dream. The she remembered her math test. Now she wanted to jump out of bed and onto the first bus out of town. How else to cop with this terrible thing she had done? She failed a math test and a quiz and she had lied to her parents. Lying to her parents had been ten times worse than telling them the truth: telling the truth would have gotten the unpleasant newsover with right away. By lying she was only postponing the agony. Everything only seemed all right; underneath, it was all wrong.

Seventh grader Jin-Ha finds her adjustment to life in America complicated by her mother's difficulty in learning to speak English.