Zomorod Yousefzadeh and her parents have moved from Iran and are living in California where her father works for an American company building an oil refinery. Zomorod decides after they move from Compton to Newport Beach to reinvent herself as Cindy and become more American. This is difficult when her parents don't speak a lot of English and her mom insists on giving the neighbors traditional Iranian food. Cindy makes a friend during the summer who turns out not to be a great friend, but once school starts she does make friends and start to assimilate into American life. Her best friend Carolyn helps with this and Cindy loves hanging out at Carolyn's house.

Then the Iranian Revolution occurs and the hostages are taken. The phone in Cindy's house rings constantly as family from Iran try to figure out if they should leave or not and Cindy's parents try to figure out what is going on. Classmates, teachers and neighbors also want to know what Cindy knows about the situation and she is constantly being asked to explain Iranian history and politics. Her father loses his job because of the situation and despite the fact that it is not safe the family plans on moving back to Iran. It will take the help of their friends and neighbors to keep them in America.

I thought this was a wonderful historical book about a time period young readers are probably not that familiar with. Cindy does a lot of explaining about the history and politics of Iran during the 1970s and before. There is a lot to be explained and some of this comes off as info-dumping, but it is all useful to understanding the situation. I thought this was a great story about the immigrant experience and seemed completely relevant to today despite being set 40 years in the past. I think kids are curious about immigrants and since it is a hot topic in the news today it is good to have a story explaining what these kids go through. I would definitely recommend this book.