Frank Carlson Library

Twelve-year-old Kasienka and her mother have immigrated to Coventry, England from Poland, searching for Kasienka's father, but everyone is unfriendly except for an African neighbor and a boy Kasienka meets at the swimming pool, which is her only refuge from an alien society.

"Amidst the Chinese-Malay conflict in Kuala Lumpur in 1969, sixteen-year-old Melati must overcome prejudice, violence, and her own OCD to find her way back to her mother"-- Melati Ahmad believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother's death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in her home city...