Yasmeen Khoury is opposed to her family's move from Detroit to San Antonio, but she doesn't have a choice - and her parents and two younger siblings treat it like a big happy adventure. For Yasmeen, it means she has to start seventh grade without her best friend Dina, in a new place where Arab-Americans are a minority (and even majority-minority Hispanic people aren't always treated well, as she eventually learns from her new friends Esme and Carlos). Yasmeen has a rough transition into the new school; her favorite part is Math Lab, but the teacher is her neighbor Mr. Cohen, which Yasmeen knows her dad won't like, so she lies about it - and strikes up a tentative friendship with Mr. Cohen's daughter Ayelet. Can a Palestinian-Lebanese-Arab-American and a Jewish Israeli-American be friends in Texas, while violence flares in Jerusalem? Yasmeen and her friends of different backgrounds educate each other about the Holocaust, the Nakba, and the Alamo, and learn to embrace their identities and stand up for what they believe in.

Quotes

...but I still don't understand. Other than Native people who've always lived here, didn't everone in America's family come from somewhere else once? (21)

...no one has noticed that I'm miserable, that this move is an exciting adventure for everyone but me. (35)

Logic problem, p. 118-119

...where my family's from has everything to do with me, and at the same time, it has nothing to do with me. (143)

Finally, I've had enough of her not noticing how I feel. I've had enough of her making choices for me without even asking. (159)

"Real friends stand up for what's right if something bad is happening. They always have your back." (Ayelet to Yasmeen, 225)

How can two people standing in the same place see something so differently? How can history be different depending on who you ask? (234)

The only problem is - what I think is right and what my parents think is right seem like two different things. (252)

"Your culture makes you who you are." (Carlos to Yasmeen, 262)

Every wave of violence closes my family's hearts tighter and tighter. (282)

Maybe it doesn't matter what language you dream in, after all. Maybe it's only important that you dream. (317)

...I understand: sadness is sadness and loss is loss. They're the same for everyone, no matter how or where they happen. (322)

"Maybe peace will begin here, with us." (336)

...maybe words that hurt always matter. (343)

I've learned a lot about second chances...for them to work, someone has to be brave enough to give them, but someone has to be brave enough to accept them, too. (347)

Maybe things that seem too different or too much the same at first start to come together after a while, if only you look a little closer. (351) ( )

Ohmygosh this never made it to my Goodreads!!! I absolutely adore WISHING UPON THE SAME STARS and recommend this sweet middle grade novel to both middle-graders and adults alike (a lot of adults have been told about this book due to the lack of young teens in my life, oops.) Super heartwarming, incredible gorgeous writing, and very deft handling of a very nuanced topic. ( )