Embrace the Chicken

Shivani and her family had only been in Canada a short time after moving from India. She was feeling quite confident about her place in her new school and enjoying her new friendships. She had been accepted, and the last thing she needed was to have her Ma come to school. Shivani loved her mother, but her mother had not yet learned the language well and was much less Canadianized than she and her sister. Ma would be an embarrassment, and her friends would laugh. Perhaps these new friends would even turn away from her. That just couldn’t happen. But her mother was persistent, and, with the help of Shivani’s sister, Ma came to the meeting and soon got to be known in the school community. Surprisingly, everyone loved her mother and loved the wonderful cooking from her homeland.

Cultural differences can make life difficult when a family first moves to a new country. As a teen, fitting in is more important than anything else. With customs, food, dress and language all different, fitting in is very difficult. Embrace the Chicken tells the story of a young teenage girl trying with all her might to fit in and be like every other student in her school. This is an honest, heartwarming story that any student will understand because teens need to fit in, cultural differences or not. Perhaps reading this well-written story will help teens support those who are different no matter what their differences may be.