A Thousand Questions

Two girls, one summer in Karachi, and a friendship that forms across the considerable distance of class and circumstance. Mimi is a Pakistani American visiting grandparents she barely knows, quietly searching for clues about her absent father. Sakina is the household cook's daughter, working to afford an English test that could change her educational future. Saadia Faruqi writes Karachi with sensory richness — the heat, the food, the texture of daily life — and the cross-class friendship at the center of the story is handled with genuine thoughtfulness rather than easy resolution. Kirkus praised it as 'rich with sensory detail' and Publishers Weekly highlighted the deft cultural exploration. The dual-narrator structure requires a little patience from readers used to a single point of view, and class-difference themes may prompt useful adult conversation. A strong and quietly important middle grade novel.