The Weight of Water, Sarah Crossan
Realistic fiction/Novel in verse
Before they’ve even left the railroad station, their suitcase breaks, and Kasienka knows that things are only going to get worse. Her father abandoned them, so now she and her mother are moving from their home in Poland to make a new life in England.
Kasienka and her mother don’t speak much English, and they quickly discover that life isn’t any easier in their new country: they are discriminated against at work and at school, their apartment has only one room, and their neighborhood is dangerous.
While her mother searches for Kasienka’s father, things get worse and worse for both of them. But there is one bright spot: Kasienka loves swimming, and she’s good at it. In the pool, it doesn’t matter that she speaks Polish, that she’s too pale, that her family is broken. She just has to be fast – and she is, enough to win the admiration of her classmates and teachers.
In the pool, Kasienka finally feels at home in a new country. Now she just has to figure out the rest.