ECLIPSE

Eight-year-old Peti doesn’t mind giving up his room to his immigrant aunt, uncle and 12-year-old cousin Gabor. Peti prefers sleeping in his parent’s room, where he feels safer. It’s 1952, and Gabor’s family has just escaped Hungary via Australia. The arrangement is anything but easy. Peti’s uncle can’t find a job; the “guests” outstay their welcome with the landlady; Gabor makes his displeasure with America known. As tensions rise, Peti begins to wish that it had been his loving grandfather Apa who made the trip instead of his sometimes mean cousin. Peti’s mother Marika takes a job of her own and continues to try to get her father out from behind the Iron Curtain. Peti befriends the local librarian, and she takes him to visit Rankin House, a stop on the Underground Railroad. That small taste of history leads Peti to appreciate the ties of his own family. With this sequel to Marika (2002), Cheng continues to chronicle in fiction stories similar to those of her own family. Short, episodic chapters and poetic prose make this a good choice for those of a literary bent. (Fiction. 9-14)