Brooklyn is a strange, intimidating place for a girl who speaks no English when she steps off her very first plane after a flight from the Dominican Republic.

 

Jessica and her mom, Camila, must live in their cousins’ crowded apartment until Camila finds work making holiday decorations and they can afford their own place.

 

Isolated on the playground and baffled in class, unable to understand her teacher’s instructions, Jessica is intensely homesick.

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But little by little, things get better. She begins to learn English, and she loves the cats she and her mom care for to earn extra money. Left behind by traveling owners, the cats make the best of their situation, inspiring Jessica to do the same.

 

Starting Over in Sunset Park is one of nine picture books featured by The New York Times in a July 12, 2024 article, "Moving Day: 9 Picture Books to Help Kids Cope," by Jennifer Hubert Swan.

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A NOTE FROM Lynn McGee:

 

When José Pelaez and I started imagining the story for Starting Over in Sunset Park, the U.S. Immigrant Family Separation Crisis of 2018 was raging and over 700 children had been separated from their families at the border. In response to public outcry and the efforts of humanitarian groups, federal mandates were put in place to reunite those families — but as of 2023, an estimated 150 children were still trapped in the custody of strangers. Our hope is that Starting Over in Sunset Park can be a comfort to immigrant children struggling to adapt, and that it will help them find strength in unexpected places.