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    Lowji Discovers America
    Lowji Discovers America
    Lowji Discovers America
    Ebook111 pages1 hour

    Lowji Discovers America

    By Candace Fleming

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    About this ebook

    Dear Jamshed,
    America is not so different from what we thought. I told you I wouldn't see a single cowboy riding across the plain, and I haven't.
    I have not even seen a plain.
    Still, there are some silver linings. They are:
    1. Trapper and King, the cat and dog who live in the apartment building. They are cuddly and waggy. I am not allowed to play with them, though, becayse they are supposed to catch mice and keep burglars away.
    2. Ironman. He owns a pig and talks to me a lot. But he is a grown-up.
    3. Kids. I can hear them playing outside. Too bad they do not want to play with me.

    I wish you were here.
    Do you wish I was in India?
    Write back soon.
    Your friend,
    Lowji
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtheneum Books for Young Readers
    Release dateJun 23, 2008
    ISBN9781439107843
    Lowji Discovers America
    Author

    Candace Fleming

    Candace Fleming is the author of Giant Squid, an ALA Notable Book and Charlotte Zolotow Honor Book, and numerous other books for children. She lives in Oak Park, Illinois. From the Author: I have always been a storyteller. Even before I could write my name, I could tell a good tale. And I told them all the time. As a preschooler, I told my neighbors all about my three-legged cat named Spot. In kindergarten, I told my classmates about the ghost that lived in my attic. And in first grade, I told my teacher, Miss Harbart, all about my family’s trip to Paris, France. I told such a good story that people always thought I was telling the truth. But I wasn’t. I didn’t have a three-legged cat or a ghost in my attic, and I’d certainly never been to Paris, France. I simply enjoyed telling a good story . . . and seeing my listener’s reaction. Sure, some people might have said I was a seven-year-old fibber. But not my parents. Instead of calling my stories "fibs" they called them "imaginative." They encouraged me to put my stories down on paper. I did. And amazingly, once I began writing, I couldn’t stop. I filled notebook after notebook with stories, poems, plays. I still have many of those notebooks. They’re precious to me because they are a record of my writing life from elementary school on. In second grade, I discovered a passion for language. I can still remember the day my teacher, Ms. Johnson, held up a horn-shaped basket filled with papier-mâché pumpkins and asked the class to repeat the word "cornucopia." I said it again and again. I tasted the word on my lips. I tested it on my ears. That afternoon, I skipped all the way home from school chanting "Cornucopia! Cornucopia!" From then on, I really began listening to words -- to the sounds they made, and the way they were used, and how they made me feel. I longed to put them together in ways that were beautiful and yet told a story. As I grew, I continued to write stories. But I never really thought of becoming an author. Instead, I went to college, where I discovered yet another passion -- history. I didn’t realize it then, but studying history was really just an extension of my love of stories. After all, some of the best stories are true ones -- tales of heroism and villainy made more incredible by the fact they really happened. After graduation, I got married and had children. I read to them a lot, and that’s when I discovered the joy and music of children’s books. I simply couldn’t get enough of them. With my two sons in tow, I made endless trips to the library. I read stacks of books. I found myself begging, "Just one more, pleeeease!" while my boys begged for lights-out and sleep. Then it struck me. Why not write children’s books? It seemed the perfect way to combine all the things I loved -- stories, musical language, history, and reading. I couldn’t wait to get started. But writing children’s books is harder than it sounds. For three years, I wrote story after story. I sent them to publisher after publisher. And I received rejection letter after rejection letter. Still, I didn’t give up. I kept trying until finally one of my stories was pulled from the slush pile and turned into a book. My career as a children’s author had begun.

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    • 5/5
      This is one of my favorite books in recent memory. Lowji is a good-natured, optimistic little boy whose parents move to the USA. He must leave behind his friends, his extended family, his familiar surroundings, and adapt to new everything. He approaches everything as an adventure and makes friends wherever he goes. There are so many laugh-out-loud moments, and the overall tone of the book is so upbeat, that it would be hard not to love Lowji.

    Book preview

    Lowji Discovers America - Candace Fleming

    BYE-BYE, BOMBAY

    I am Lowji Sanjana. I am a kid. I used to live in the country of India, in the big city of Bombay, in an apartment building with my ma and my bape and NO PETS! That was the apartment building’s rule: NO PETS!

    But not long ago—just weeks after my ninth birthday—I learned we were moving … far away … across the ocean … to …

    America! exclaimed Bape.

    America? I gasped. I did not believe my ears!

    How could I leave my grandmother and my grandfather? How could I leave my aunts and my uncles and my cousins? How could I leave my school and my best friend, Jamshed?

    I started to cry.

    Bape put his arms around me. Look for the good in our move, Lowji, he said. Find the silver lining.

    I blew my nose. What silver lining? I could not find any silver lining.

    It was my friend Jamshed who found some silver first.

    Lowji, he said. In America you can finally have a dog! A dog who will sleep on your bed. A dog who will play ball with you.

    Yes, I said, slowly beginning to find some silver too. And a cat! I can finally have a cat to cuddle with. A cat who will purr when I pet it.

    And, cried Jamshed, clapping his hands in excitement, a horse!

    I raised my eyebrows. A horse?

    Of course, said Jamshed. In America many people have horses for galloping across open plains and rounding up cows.

    How do you know this? I asked.

    I saw it at the cinema, answered Jamshed.

    The cinema? I thought about the American films I had seen lately. I do not remember seeing any horses … or cattle … or plains.

    Well, admitted Jamshed, it was an old movie. Really old. In black and white.

    Ah. I nodded. I had never thought of owning a horse before.

    Later, when I asked Ma and Bape about having a dog and a cat and maybe even a horse in America, they said, Najare padvum. That means We will see in Gujarati—the language we sometimes spoke in Bombay when we were not using English. And so I came to America with high hopes of becoming a pet owner.

    And oh, how different things are here in America.

    Different clothes!

    Different foods!

    Different faces!

    One thing, however, has stayed the same. NO PETS are allowed in my new apartment either.

    Already I have learned an American expression for how I feel about this: Bummer!

    HELLO, HAMLET

    I squash my nose against the taxi window to get a better look at my new American town—Hamlet, Illinois. Hamlet, I see, is small and quiet. I am not used to small and quiet. I am used to big and loud. I am used to honking cars and rattling trains and double-decker buses that raise clouds of hot, dry dust. I am used to sidewalks crowded with shoppers and pushcarts and people asleep on the pavement. I am used to billboards and bridges and buildings that stretch to the sky.

    But Hamlet has none of these. Instead it has narrow streets and shady trees. It has a town square with a pizza restaurant, a shoe shop, and a statue of a man on a horse.

    Do people in Hamlet have horses? I ask.

    I hope.

    I pray.

    But Ma shakes her head.

    Bummer, I say, trying out my new American expression. I flop back against the car seat. I think about the dog I will not be sleeping with. I think about the cat I will not be cuddling.

    Our taxi turns a corner, and Bape says, Look, Lowji, there is the school you will be attending.

    I look.

    We pass an empty brick building with a playground in the back and a sign in the front. The sign reads: HAMLET ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.

    Where are all the kids? I ask.

    They are on holiday, answers Bape. For the summer.

    The whole summer? I gasp. I do not believe my ears! In Bombay I went to a private school. I went all year-round. I went six days a week.

    I can almost hear Jamshed: More silver, Lowji. More silver!

    I agree.

    Then the taxi turns another corner and comes to a stop.

    Maarun miithun madhurun ghar! cries Bape. Home, sweet home!

    We climb out of the car and stand on the sidewalk.

    What do you think? asks Bape.

    I think I am surprised. In Bombay we lived on the forty-seventh floor of a modern apartment building. Here in Hamlet we will be living on the third floor of an apartment house—a house with a wide front porch and a yard full of trees and grass.

    I like it, says Ma.

    I look around. I do not see any balls. I do not see any bicycles.

    Do any kids live in this apartment house? I ask.

    Bape shakes his head. The letter I received said there are only two other tenants—an elderly lady named Mrs. Pendergast, who lives on the first floor. And a newly married couple with the last name of Dove. They live on the second floor.

    I sigh. No pets and no kids.

    My parents do not answer.

    The first thing I notice when we step through the front door is that our apartment house is very clean. The walls are as white as Bape’s cotton shirt. The floors are shiny. There is not a speck of dust on the stairs or a single cobweb in the corners.

    Lemony fresh, I say, using an American expression I have learned from watching television. Our apartment house smells lemony fresh.

    It should, someone says, what with all the elbow grease I put into it.

    We turn. A woman wearing men’s coveralls and a tool belt is standing there.

    Good afternoon, Bape says politely. He brings his palms together in the Indian gesture of greeting. We are the Sanjana family. I am Farokh. This is my wife, Sooni. And this is our son, Lowji.

    Ma and I nod.

    The woman grunts. The new tenants, huh? Your boxes have been arriving for days now. I’ve been stacking them in your apartment. Place looks like a warehouse—lots of work for sure.

    Ma steps forward. She smiles and asks, And you are …?

    Crisp, says the woman. Ada Crisp. I’m the landlady.

    We are happy to meet you, says Ma.

    Uh-huh, says Landlady Crisp. She takes in Ma’s bangles and nose ring. She looks up and down at Ma’s

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