This is a cute tween novel with a winning protagonist who feels torn between the tech world of her parents and the arts and crafts she loves. When her favorite boba spot, Boba Time, is facing competition from a new chain restaurant, Pearl decides to save her sanctuary. Diverse and compelling, a lot of readers will love this heartwarming novel.

A cute little middle grade read for anyone. Though this book was not made “for me” I still enjoyed reading it & I will be recommending it to my students

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me access to the free advanced digital copy of this book.

A great homage to young crafters and entrepreneurs, not to mention those who love a good boba tea. Pearl's story will be great for those who are interested in crafts over tech, without shaming either field. Starting a business sounds easy, but Pearl's journey breaks down the minutiae that tweens can expect if they want to dive into the world of Etsy and making a little spending money with their handcrafts. I enjoyed the friendship elements, depicting a realistic fight and make-up, learning about differences, appreciating various talents, and standing up for your own creativity. There's even math included on how to make a profit! Great middle grade read.

Middle-grader kids will gobble this up. Bubble tea is one of my class's favorite treats. We are looking forward to more books starring Pearl.

A cute story about Pearl and her quest to save her favorite boba place and find her place in her tech orientated family. She struggles with being taken seriously by her family for her hobbies, so when her favorite boba place is at risk of shutting down, she thinks it's the perfect opportunity to show what she's made of. A quick read and absolutely fun, Chen introduces children to starting a business and brings in culture clash without racism. Pearl's stubbornness and inability to think beyond herself can be frustrating, but lessons are learned in a realistic way for kids.

🧋 Pearl Li loves boba, her amigurumi (crocheted dolls), and Boba Time owned by Auntie (not her biological aunt) Cha who encourages her to keep crocheting. She’s eager to spend the summer crocheting more dolls and hanging out with her two best friends Priya and Cindy.

🧶 Pearl’s summer gets off to a rocky start when she finds out that Boba Time is struggling financially and Auntie Cha is considering selling if she can’t make ends meet. She decides that she will sell her amigurumi creations to raise the money Boba Time needs. But running a business is more complicated than expected — especially when you’re doing it behind your parents’ backs. Can Pearl make it work?

🧋 This is a sweet, heartwarming middle grade novel about crafting, entrepreneurship, friendship, and navigating parental expectations. This is an excellent book for showing kids the ins-and-outs of running a successful business, down to marketing, setting pricing, and customer relations. It’s also a great addition to the lineup of books addressing the parental pressure to excel in science/engineering over creative pursuits. This one’s a delightful debut that I totally recommend — I’d choose the audiobook over the print version, too!

This could easily have been a story about following your passions in spite of parent's disapproval. Chen doesn't stop there. While there is certainly an element of that Pearl's story is as much about paying attention to other people as it is being true to yourself. Sure, Pearl learns to stand up for herself and express her frustrations with her parent's dismissal. She also has to learn to look beyond her own desires. She's developing her identity but also needing to recognize that other people have needs and concerns and that her actions impact others. And on top of all that we get a solid illustration of the difficulties of running a small business. An engaging read populated by believable, flawed characters.

Boba Time’s the best time!

It's Boba Time for Pearl Li! by Nicole Chen is a standalone novel and is boba filled with a combination of friendship and entrepreneurship. Pearl is a young girl who loves to go to a boba shop. Unfortunately, the boba shop is on the verge of closing down. So Pearl decides she wants to help keep it open. Will she be able to keep it open?

This novel was so good! Not only did it have a completely diverse cast of characters and cultures, it was based in a boba shop! There was a mix of insecurities, inferiority complexes, and friendships. It also had focus on family dynamics (the good and bad) and tweens becoming teens. I loved the Asian vs Asian American dynamics and the Chinese cultural explanations.

Above all of that, there was a use of multiple languages, English, Mandarin, and Taiwanese. It was also great that the main characters were from Hong Kong, India, and Taiwan (Taiwanese American). The diversity is strong! Coming back to the family, the things that stuck out the most were the fact that they didn’t have a voice or were not able to speak up. Another issue is that they were doing what their families wanted rather than what they wanted.

Finally, the entrepreneurship that’s within the story is super strong and it shows that you don’t have to be an adult to have a business. The characters built a business as a tween, it also showed the struggle of having a business and that you can monetize passions like crocheting.

This is a great coming of age story with an Asian American protagonist. The chapters are in bite size chunks and have a full story within the story. It also is filled with friendship, entrepreneurship, growing up, and is a contemporary story. It’s great for readers aged 10-12+ but can be read alone for the upper middle grade levels. It opens space for discussions too.

I hope there are more coming from Nicole Chen.

*This was an honest review for a complimentary copy of It's Boba Time for Pearl Li! from Nicole Chen via NetGalley

Okay good book here. I liked it and I enjoyed the writing here for the most part. So I'd say it's a wonderful book overall.

Pearl Li, like many kids her age, just wants to spend the summer with her bestie. Also like many kids entering middle school, Pearl's friendships are experiencing some bumps as they develop different interests. Friendships aren't the only thing that are frustrating Pearl though. Her favorite tea shop, Boba Time, is having financial troubles and her family isn't taking her art (crocheting amigurumi) seriously. Pearl will have to find a way past all of her troubles if she is going to save Boba Time and convince her family to take her seriously.

I really enjoyed this book. It was well written and I think will keep the interest of middle grade readers. I love the incorporation of boba and amigurumi, which I think are very popular but don't show up in books often. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys quick, light reads or who is growing their middle school library collection.

I really wish books like this had been available when I was a kid but I'm always happy to find them for my kids! I like seeing more diversity in MC especially Asians that do more than code! I could relate with Pearl and her family issues. She is a delightful character and I enjoyed all the side characters! Her friend group was great and it felt authentic! This book was perfect to read aloud to my kids! There was so much in here about starting a business and pricing and cost that was really cool to talk about with my kids. My oldest 2 (ages 11 and 9) really enjoyed it!! I can't wait to see what Nicole writes next!!

Thank you Nicole, Netgalley, HarperCollins Children's Books, and Quill Tree Books for my review e-copy! I'll definitely be picking up physical copies for me and my kids!!

Thank you NetGalley and Quill Tree Books for the Advanced Reader Copy!

Within reading the first couple of pages, I knew I was going to fall in love with this book. Like the protagonist Pearl, I grew up loving to crochet and all things crafting. It was so refreshing to read about a young girl who loves art like I did (and still do!) when I was her age! I appreciate all the topics the book talked about -- friendships, tense family dynamics, dealing with the perception of others, and much more. All of the themes were brought up and written about beautifully. I would have benefited from a book like this in middle school! It was lovely to see Pearl grow throughout the book, especially learning how to listen to others while also feeling confident in who she is. I also fell in love with the whole cast of characters who felt so real with their own flaws and goals too. The story always kept me guessing and hooked me from very early on. It was certainly a page-turner! Some of my middle school students saw me read this book during quiet classroom moments, and they were already telling me how excited they were to read this book! I can't wait to introduce this book to them once the book is published!

I thought this book was extremely charming. As someone who crochets a little, and enjoys the occasional boba tea, I love that this focuses on Pearl and her love for Boba and Amigurumi.

I think Pearl is a character who is easy to relate to. She's still trying to figure out who she is, and how to stand up for herself and what she loves. A lot of things start changing all at once, and she makes a lot of mistakes, but ends up learning from them. And she's able to strengthen her relationships with her friends and family.

I also love that there is a glossary of terms at the end of the book, and a little chart for how Pearl calculated the profits for Kawaii Crochets. I thought that it was a nice way for younger kids to understand what was being talked about, and give them an idea of what to do if they also wanted to start making and selling things.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Harpercollins Children's books for allowing me to read an ARC of this delightful book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

This is one of those middle grade books that feels like a warm hug and is honestly just the sweetest thing (and made me want boba).

I received an advanced copy of this ebook from the publisher for an honest review. This book is well written and the characters are described well. I absolutely adored this book. It shares the love of amigurumi crochet. The characters are enjoyable. I enjoyed this authors writing style. I admire Pearl's insistence on helping Boba Time café. I absolutely highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone. This book is in stores for $19.99 (USD).

I feel like KidLit just keeps surprising me in delivering stories in which kids get to celebrate really cool hobbies. I don’t think I’ve ever read a middle grade book about someone who crochets before, so I totally enjoyed that aspect of Pearl’s story. One thing I loved were the descriptions of her creativity with her amigurumi designs and the way her friends and customers reacted to her creations.

Another thing that I treasure about this particular story is that it celebrated both girls who code (through Pearl’s older sister, Jade) and girls who craft, and found a way to connect the value of both in terms of both being creative pursuits. I liked that Pearl learns to view her art in a new way and to view her sister and mom’s coding in a new way, too.

The relationship between Pearl and Auntie Cha was also super special. I loved that it models mentorship and having great adults in your life outside the family, too. The story also keeps Pearl at its center as the active character making choices and learning without it becoming her mentor solving her problems. I thought the balance there was perfect.

I also enjoyed learning a bit about the art of amigurumi and about Boba tea as well. All in all, IT’S BOBA TIME FOR PEARL LI was a delight to read. I think readers who enjoy books like MORNING SUN IN WUHAN by Ying Chang Compestine will enjoy the celebrations of creativity and community in this book.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions my own.

DNF 37%

I really wanted to read this book because the whole premise sounds sweet and adorable, but between feeling slightly bored with it (100% case of my own focus issues, not the book) and frustration at selling handmade amigurumi for only $10 each (which is realistic BUT STILL!) I’m going to set this book aside. I think it has a lot of potential and I am curious how it will resolve things with Kendall, the “mean girl” who makes fun of Pearl for making amigurumi and who’s Taiwanese grandmother is now living with her so now she’s connecting to Taiwanese roots, and Pearl’s best friend Priya who keeps feeling left out between Pearl and Cindy who both speak Mandarin together. I think there’s definitely a lot of interesting interpersonal threads already at play, but right now this book is not working for me. May come back to it at a later date, and hope it finds its audience because I do believe it is a good book.

This book was delightful! A very sweet tale about how a middle schooler attempts to save her favorite tea shop. I was rooting for Pearl throughout this story, and I admire her growth. This story would be great for children that have entrepreneurial spirits, and I think the books teaches great lessons about beginning to sell your crafts as a child - in addition to the life lessons learned about family and friendship. I will definitely suggest this title to fans of middle grade contemporary realistic fiction, anyone that wants a heartwarming tale, or anyone interested in books that highlight friendship.

It’s Boba Time for Pearl Li! by Nicole Chen
Rating: 4/5

Thanks to @harpercollinsch for providing me with an advanced reader copy of this via @netgalley!

My first thought about this book was how cute the cover was! I just had to read it. And I was not disappointed at all with this contemporary middle-grade story, either!

Pearl is a highly-relatable character; she wants to do her Asian parents (especially her business-oriented mom) proud but you know how it can be--- parents want the best for you even though they don’t quite consider your interests, and don’t forget, comparing you to others. Well, Pearl is determined to tackle all of it in order to continue her love of crochet(ing amigurumi dolls) and also hold a business in order to save a local boba tea shop where she feels safe and appreciated. The book is unapologetically Taiwanese and I loved learning about that! I’d say the biggest theme in the book was making mistakes. You want to root for Pearl but she’s making decisions that just may not be the best (to be honest, in some cases I did side with Pearl lol). And that’s okay! No one is perfect and we see Pearl grow a lot with her relationships with her friends, parents, and sister.

I’ve taken off one star because of the South Asian rep here. Pearl has a best friend, Priya, and as a South Asian reader, I was happy to see her. The East+South Asian dynamic that played out in the story was really good! However, I do have some comments. First, while it’s a very pretty name, I personally think Priya/Priyanka is very overused in the entertainment space. There are many other names we can pick to show she’s (non-Muslim) Indian. Second, her family is said to be from Mumbai, but then Priya mentions antique items from South India that her mother liked. Mumbai is in West India, not South India. I’m not seeing a connection unless I missed something. Third, we also see another character of South Asian origin and Pearl describes her as an older version of Priya. But we find out that her family is from Jodhpur, North India. South Asian phenotypes vary wildly, especially in different regions. I don’t believe they should look that similar. I understand the story wanted Pearl to think of Priya as they had a falling out, but I think it could have been written differently.

TL;DR: A cute cover with a cute character, It’s Boba Time for Pearl Li! is a great read. This story gives you the ever-present Asian parenting struggles with a flare of learning how to do business! South Asian rep could be improved to make the book flawless.