Book Review of Pippa Park Raises Her Game
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The Children’s Book Review
What to Expect: Friendship, online bullying, family, identity, basketball, Korean culture.
Centering around the pressures of being a second-generation Korean American and a teenager, this middle-grade novel explores the universal challenges of being young, including the conflict between family expectations and finding one’s own identity, the pressure to fit into the crowd, and the anguish of a first crush.
Pippa loves to play basketball—and she’s really good at it. However, when her math grades start to fall, her big sister, Mina, not only bans her from playing on the school team but insists that she spend her Tuesday evenings with a math tutor. In her Korean family, low grades are simply not acceptable.
Pippa is furious until she meets her new math tutor: handsome, rich, clever Eliot Haverford from the prestigious Lakeview School. Pippa develops an instant crush, and when Lakeview offers her a basketball scholarship, it seems that all her dreams are on the verge of coming true—this is her opportunity to leave behind her family’s poverty and their demands, play basketball, and get Eliot to like her. The only problem is she doesn’t quite fit in at Lakeview.
As a heroine, Pippa is outgoing, determined, and immature at the start of the narrative. However, readers will watch her develop into a young woman with confidence and integrity, able to follow her dreams without compromising her friendships and loyalties. This growth is not just a part of the story, but it’s a journey that readers will find themselves invested in. The first-person narration is persuasive, engaging, and peppered with snippets of the Korean language and culture, giving readers an insider’s view of what it means to straddle two cultures.
The story’s themes of identity, friendship, fitting in, teamwork, and relationships have resonated so strongly with readers that the Pippa Park series has now been adapted into a video diary series, bringing these important messages to life in a new format.
Funny, compelling, and deeply relatable, this is the perfect novel for middle-school go-getters. Many young readers will find that Pippa’s journey echoes their own experiences, making this a particularly engaging and enjoyable read.
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About the Author
Erin Yun is the author of the bestselling AAPI middle-grade series Pippa Park, which includes two titles: Pippa Park Raises Her Game (Book 1) and Pippa Park: Crush at First Sight (Book 2). She received her BA in English from New York University and her Masters in Creative Writing from Cambridge. While at NYU, she served as president of its policy debate team. This experience came in handy when she worked as the debate consultant for the Tony-nominated Best Play—What the Constitution Means to Me.
She created the Pippa Park Author Program, an interactive writing workshop that she has conducted both in person and virtually at schools, libraries, and bookstores. Folks can tell she grew up in Texas by how often she says “y’all.” And yes—she used to play basketball as a middle grader!
For more information, visit pippapark.com
Check out the YouTube series here:
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