I'm Ok

An Asian/Pacific American Literature Award Honor Book

Ok Lee is determined to find the perfect get-rich-quick scheme in this funny, uplifting novel that bestselling author Gene Luen Yang called “So funny and heartfelt.”

Ok Lee knows it’s his responsibility to help pay the bills. With his father gone and his mother working three jobs and still barely making ends meet, there’s really no other choice. If only he could win the cash prize at the school talent contest! But he can’t sing or dance, and has no magic up his sleeves, so he tries the next best thing: a hair braiding business.

It’s too bad the girls at school can’t pay him much, and he’s being befriended against his will by Mickey McDonald, the unusual girl with a larger-than-life personality. Who needs friends? They’d only distract from his mission, and Ok believes life is better on his own. Then there’s Asa Banks, the most popular boy in their grade, who’s got it out for Ok.

But when the pushy deacon at their Korean church starts wooing Ok’s mom, it’s the last straw. Ok has to come up with an exit strategy—fast.

Born in Busan, South Korea, Patti Kim immigrated to the United States on Christmas, 1974. Convinced at the age of five that she was a writer, she scribbled gibberish all over the pages of her mother’s Korean-English dictionary and got in big trouble for it. But that didn’t stop her from writing. The author of I’m Ok; It’s Girls Like You, Mickey; A Cab Called Reliable; and Here I Am, Patti lives in University Park, Maryland, with her husband, two daughters, and a ferocious terrier. Visit her online at PattiKimWrites.com.