The book Girl in Translation is a about a young chinese girl who immigrates with her mother to New York when she is about to be in fifth grade. The books starts when she is eleven and ends when she is a 30 year old women and has her own kid. Throughout the book, the family goes through a lot of hardships. Most of the hardships that they go through are because of the main character, Kim’s, aunt not helping. In addition, the absence of Kim’s dead father also makes it harder for them. In the book, there are three main settings; the factory that they work at, Kim’s school, and their house.

Life at their house is very hard for Kim and her Mother. This is mostly because the house is in very very bad condition. In fact it is probably even illegal to even be living there. There are mice and roaches and the windows are broken. What’s even worse is that there is no heating which is very hard for them in the winter especially since all the windows are broken so cold wind is constantly gushing in. They don’t have the money to buy blankets as well which made it even colder.

At school, Kim has a very hard time fitting in. This is because so many people treat her differently because she is an immigrant. They think that she isn’t smart so they don’t pay any attention to her and when they do pay attention to her it is to make fun of her and tease her. However, this doesn’t stay consistent for the entire book. Later, as she gets older and matures, and improves her english, she starts to understand the American way of life a lot better which makes it easier for her to fit in. She starts making more friends but it is hard for her to keep them all because of her life style. However, she does have one friend, Annette who she has stayed with forever because she is accepting and doesn’t ask too many questions about Kim’s different life.

Kim’s life at her factory is very bad as well. Again, like many factories in that time period, the working conditions were illegal. However, it was there were Kim met the love her life. The whole theme of this story was that good things can come from bad and this is where it shows through.