The Brightest Sun by Adrienne Benson

This book is about two girls.

Adia was born in Kenya of a white American archeologist mother and a white Kenyan absent father. She spent her early childhood in a Masai village raised by a barren African Masai woman. From there she went to school in Nairobi where her mother was going through the motions of educating her child but not really paying much attention to her. Adia was that girl who stayed in one place and all her classmates came and went. She was odd. After her grandmother appeared on the scene, Adia ended up in boarding school in her passport country. Her grandparents always wanted her to “come home” but their home was never hers. Boarding school had its own challenges of fitting in with a culture she knew nothing about.

Grace was also born in Kenya, but her parents moved around. Her father worked for the State Department. Her mother had been an aid worker in Kenya but had a traumatic experience and found consolation from an Embassy man. Her future husband. Grace and her parents bounced from the USA to several other African countries before returning to Nairobi where she met Adia. Grace was fed up with moving around and Adia was like nobody she had met before. Grace was tired of the in-between life of the expats. She loved that Adia was so comfortable in her environment.

I love the way this book weaves in the different aspects of Third Culture Kids. It touches on having strong ties to one culture when the parents and grandparents are not part of that culture. The pull of family. The possibility of a different kind of family. Immersing in culture. And living on the edges of culture. It also goes into how people adapt to pain and grief and, of course, change. 

I really appreciated and enjoyed this book. I could really relate to it.