Mya's strategy to save the world

Tanya Lloyd Kyi, 1973-

Book - 2019

Mya Parsons runs her school's social justice club with her best friend, Cleo. Her lifelong desire is to work for the United Nations and change the world, and then bask in all the ensuing adulation. Her more immediate desire is to get a phone, preferably one like Cleo's, with a leopard-print case to match. When her distracted dad and her long-distance mom (temporarily in Myanmar taking care of Mya's grandmother) both say no, no way, and possibly never, Mya launches a campaign to prove herself reliable and deserving. She advertises her babysitting services, takes on more responsibility around the house, and attempts to supervise her sister's skateboarding lessons. Her efforts leave her ego bruised and the kitchen slightly ...scorched. She's no closer to touch-screen victory, let alone the Nobel Peace Prize she deserves. But all that changes after an accident leaves Mya to take charge-an experience which helps her realize how much she's grown, with or without access to proper communications.

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Subjects
Published
Toronto : Puffin Canada 2019.
Language
English
Main Author
Tanya Lloyd Kyi, 1973- (author)
Physical Description
191 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
Issued also in electronic format
ISBN
9780735265257
Contents unavailable.
Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr. 4-7-Seventh-grader Mya lives in Vancouver with her parents and her eight-year-old sister. She and best friend Cleo founded the "Kids for Social Justice" club at their school because Mya has plans for a future career as a U.N. representative (and Nobel Prize winner). While working on current issues like the Rohingya humanitarian crisis in Myanmar (where her mother has gone to take care of her ill grandmother), Mya also has to come up with a "multi-pronged strategy" to convince her dad that she is responsible enough for a cell phone. It's hard enough trying to solve the world's problems without adding cooking lessons from her aunt, a first crush, and her first period-but if anyone can do it, the plucky and endearing Mya can. The breezy narrative is broken up by recipes for traditional foods from Mynamar and Mya's emails to her mom and Cleo. Though tackling some tough topics (which are addressed in an author's note), Mya's witty voice and deep desire for a cell phone will keep tween readers engaged. VERDICT A welcome addition to middle grade bookshelves.-Laurie Slagenwhite Walters, Brighton District Library, Brighton, MI © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A young social activist must prove her reliability while her mother is away.Mya Parsons, 12-year-old future United Nations staffer, wants to save the world. Unfortunately, it's hard to save the world when her mother is all the way in Myanmar, taking care of her sick grandmother, and Mya is one of the only kids in seventh grade without a cellphone. Using a multipronged strategy, Mya sets out to prove she is responsible and deserving of a phone. As the weeks go on, Mya's home life starts to fall apart. Plus, with her best friend distracted by cellphones and crushes, her school life isn't going well either. Mya must take charge if she'll ever save the world, let alone survive the next few weeks. Writing from Mya's first-person point of view, Kyi creates accessible characters and a funny story. Emails, flyers, and recipes that Mya has created add pleasant breaks to the text. With an Asian mother who's Buddhist and a white father who's Christian, biracial Mya forthrightly discusses religion. Befitting her protagonist, Kyi includes real social justice issues in addition to preteen girl life, shedding light on important topics such as the persecution of the Rohingya and the use of cobalt in cellphones.For any girl going through life, body, and school changes, especially those interested in social activism. (author's note) (Fiction. 9-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

There are two types of people in the world: those who sleep with tissue boxes on their bedside tables, and those who pick their noses before bed and wipe their boogers on the sheets. I am the first type. My sister, Nanda, is the second. I know this because (a) we share a bedroom, and (b) my mother once read that kids who get more sleep are more intelligent. Which meant I had to go to bed at 8:30 p.m., the same as Nanda (who is FOUR YEARS younger than I am). It's practically still light outside, which meant I could see her wipe her snot on her sheets. And Mom and Dad wonder why I refuse to share a bed with Nanda on vacation. Who would want to share sheets with a known snot-wiper? On the Saturday night after our second week of school, I was awake for plenty of time to watch Nanda handle her snot, and for a long time after. Mom was away and Dad had a work party to attend, so I was left babysitting. I had been begging them, forever, to stop hiring Joanna from down the street because I was twelve years and three months old, almost a teenager myself, and it was ultra-humiliating to be babysat when I wasn't a baby and did not need to be sat upon. I was totally up for the job. It wasn't easy to supervise my eight-year-old sister, though. At first, I thought Nanda would watch TV and I would call my best friend, Cleo, so we could talk about how Drew cried in the cloakroom at lunchtime after his soccer team lost. But we had hardly started discussing whether Drew was wonderfully sensitive (Cleo's opinion) or weirdly competitive and a bad sport (my opinion) when, from the corner of my eye, I saw zombies. Nanda was watching a show about dead things with flesh still hanging from them. They were staggering around a city as if that was the best thing dead people could find to do with their time. Nanda always ruins everything. After I made her turn off the TV and put on her pajamas, she threw a fit. "Mya, I'm not making this up," she said. "There's something outside the window." There was nothing there, of course, but I had to open our bedroom window and yell, "Come and get us, flesh-eating figments of Nanda's imagination," before she would believe me. Then I had to stay in our room while she curled up, picked her nose and went to sleep. Excerpted from Mya's Strategy to Save the World by Tanya Lloyd Kyi All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.