This week, our book is set in San Francisco in 1906. If you know your history, that date should shiver your spine.

Mercy Wong, the heroine of Stacey Lee’s Outrun the Moon, grows up in Chinatown. Her greatest wish is to attend the St. Clare’s School for Girls.

Good luck with that, Mercy. That’s a school for rich girls. Rich white girls, and Mercy belongs to a tribe of unwelcome immigrants subjected to strict zoning laws and unwanted Black Death vaccinations that leave her little brother addled.

But she keeps trying, and she finally gets into the school.

She had hoped to learn economics, not embroidery, but before she can finish the hanky she’ll need for the upcoming dance, the earth begins to shake.

When Mercy and her classmates dig out, they emerge onto the street. The farther they go, the more they understand that this was no small temblor. Post-earthquake life has a way of equalizing everybody in the city. There’s no time for shunning yellow-skinned undesirables. Survival shows what Mercy and her classmates are made of.

There’s a mean girl in the story, played to pearly-pursed perfection. There’s a love interest. There are also hints that Mercy’s ancestors look out for her, sending gifts that help her through some tough days.

Lee wrote in a few plot contrivances, but she rewards her readers with some wonderful surprises, too. It was worth the wading-through.

Photo credit:   HousingWorksPhotos on Visual Hunt / CC BY-SA