Julia Song and her friend Patrick would love to win a blue ribbon, maybe even two, at the state fair. They've always done projects together, and they work well as a team. Then Julia's mother offers a suggestion: They can raise silkworms, as she did when she was a girl in Korea.

Of course there are obstacles - for example, where will they get mulberry leaves, the only thing silkworms eat? - but nothing they can't handle.

Julia isn't so sure. The club where kids do their projects is all about traditional American stuff - farm animals, crops, cooking and sewing. And raising silkworms just doesn't fit in. There might be an easy way around this, but the author, Ms. Park, seems determined to make Julia's life as complicated as possible, no matter how hard Julia tries to talk her out of it.

Unique and expertly crafted, Project Mulberry is a funny, lively, contemporary story that illuminates the process of writing a novel and the meaning of growing up American.