Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All: (A Newbery Honor Book)

By Chanel Miller

A Newbery Honor book and instant New York Times, USA Today, and indie bestseller!

Award-winning author and artist Chanel Miller tells a fun, funny, and poignant story of friendship and community starring Magnolia Wu, a ten-year-old sock detective bent on returning all the lonely only socks left behind in her parents' NYC laundromat.

Down at the bottom of the tall buildings of New York City, Magnolia Wu sits inside her parents’ laundromat. She has pinned every lost sock from the laundromat onto a bulletin board in hopes that customers will return to retrieve them. But no one seems to have noticed. In fact, barely anyone has noticed Magnolia at all. 

What she doesn’t know is that this is about to be her most exciting summer yet. When Iris, a new friend from California arrives, they set off across the city to solve the mystery of each missing sock, asking questions in subways and delis and plant stores and pizzerias, meeting people and uncovering the unimaginable.  

With each new encounter, Magnolia learns that when you’re bold enough to head into the unknown, things start falling into place.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
• Release date: Apr 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9780593624548

Book preview

The Bing Qi Ling Bubbles Birthday

Magnolia Wu was almost ten. She was eager to turn ten, because the number 9 looked like a sprout coming out of the ground, small and easily stomped. Ten was a strong, two-digit number that looked like a sword and a shield that belonged to someone who was about to conquer the world.

But Magnolia Wu was not about to conquer the world, because all summer she’d been stuck inside Bing Qi Ling Bubbles Laundromat, where her parents had worked since she was born. And there would be no birthday party. Magnolia did not have a single friend in New York City. This was not an observation to be mean—if anybody asked her, she would’ve said the same thing. She used to have one friend, but that friend moved away to the suburbs because of grass. Many families moved out of the city to be closer to grass.

In addition to being alone, she was too hot. It was so hot that snails nearly melted on the sidewalk and pigeons seemed to be panting. Magnolia sweat on her nose, behind her knees, even inside her belly button. Her internal organs boiled like sweet potatoes. At least that’s what she felt like.

Magnolia crouched on the floor of the laundromat, stretching her arm beneath a washing machine until she found what she was looking for: a single sock. She pulled out the dusty sock, took a thumbtack from a wooden box, and pinned the sock onto a bulletin board. The board was full of lost socks, solo and abandoned, separated from their pairs.

To Magnolia, each sock was a mystery, and she waited for the day that their owners would return to claim them. She wondered where the socks had been, if they’d trekked through mud or snow, climbed a flowering hillside, or danced on Broadway stages. But so far no one had come back, the socks forgotten or replaced by whatever other important things adults were out there doing.

As Magnolia stared at the socks on this very hot day, she began to wonder if she was silly for thinking they’d lead to anything. Most of her classmates were on vacation for the summer, which meant lobster rolls and berry picking and frog catching and boats with napkin-white sails. Meanwhile, Magnolia collected quarters from the washers and dryers, helped her parents sift through the mail, and restocked the detergent. As she looked around at the spinning machines, she wondered if she’d be stuck here the rest of her life, inside a loop of endless loads and the comings and goings of customers.

Magnolia used to be excited by her daily tasks; when she was little, Magnolia’s mom fed clothes into the circular mouths of the washing machines, pretending they were robots that slurped up sleeves. Mr. Wu rolled Magnolia around in the metal laundry cart that he nicknamed the Cage Ferrari. They made paper sailor hats and pretended they were in a submarine, staring into the washing machine window like it was a dark and stormy sea. She was even allowed to paint a fire-breathing dragon on the laundry delivery cart attached to his bicycle, but it came out looking like a lizard barfing orange juice.

Whenever Magnolia asked her mom why they never went on vacation, Mrs. Wu’s answer was always the same: No time, too busy, too expensive. The only times she’d seen her mom rest were when she watched movies on her laptop or snacked on dried, salted plums on the phone with Auntie Mei. Magnolia hoped they could at least create a spa day, placing cucumber slices over their eyes, but knew her mom would never waste food by putting it on her face like that.

Luckily, Magnolia had Mister Pants, the family dog. The Wus hadn’t planned on getting a dog, since dogs shed hair on clothes and hair causes customers to sneeze and customers write bad reviews on the internet. But one winter night, he wandered in and burrowed beneath a warm pile of laundry. The next morning, he emerged with a pair of pants on his head and secured his position in the family.

So this was how the days passed, full of heat, dangling socks, a sleeping dog, and rumbling machines, while her dad pedaled through the city making deliveries and her mom folded mountains of clothes until the sky turned black.

On the morning Magnolia turned ten, she decided that if she was going to be stuck all summer in the Big Apple, she’d find a way to be a wild worm, freely wiggling and chewing through all of it. She pocketed some crumpled dollar bills to buy soft pretzels from a nearby street vendor, then licked chunks of salt off the pretzel’s skin. Her eyes followed the clouds that grazed past the tip of the Empire State Building, half hoping they would pop. She sculpted gray sharks out of dryer lint, displayed them in a line atop the cash register. Finally, she illustrated a frowning chimney on their No Smoking sign. Then she was out of things to do.

Right around lunchtime, Mr. Wu emerged from the back room yelling, HAPPY BIRTHDAYYYY!!!

He’d safety-pinned candy around a cloth tape measure and draped it like a necklace around Magnolia’s neck. Mrs. Wu presented Magnolia with a bowl of red bean ice cream in one hand, a thick scented candle in the other. Mrs. Wu believed that birthday candles were a needless expense—if they already had large scented candles, Magnolia could blow those out instead.

A candle is a candle—why buy teeny tiny ones? she’d said.

Magnolia hesitated before blowing it out, knowing that as soon as she did, her parents’ attention would be pulled back into work, so she took a long inhale, then blew out the candle with her nose to amuse her dad. She assumed that was it, that the day would return to its regular programming, but Mrs. Wu said, I have a surprise.

Mrs. Wu said that her old friend Ms. Lam had recently moved to New York from Santa Cruz, California, and she had a daughter Magnolia’s age named Iris. Usually, when Mrs. Wu tried to set Magnolia up with one of her friend’s kids, it was not good. That was called a forced friendship, and the chances that their stars would align were extremely low. Once, Magnolia met one of her mom’s friend’s kids named Kyle. Kyle showed her

Reviews for Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All

[electrascaife · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Magnolia’s parents run a laundromat in NYC and, in Magnolia’s estimation, are too busy to spare her any real notice. She’s embarrassed that she lives and works in such a business and thinks her classmates look down on her and her life. But then Iris moves to the neighborhood from California and they strike up an instant friendship, deciding to turn Magnolia’s Lost Sock display into a detective business to track down the missing owners, and so begins to learn more about the people in her life and how lucky she really is.

This one won a Newbery Honor this year and it fully deserves the accolade. I very much think that middle grade fiction must be one of the most difficult genres to write in; capturing the right tone to make a narrative feel like it actually comes from a middle grade mindset is rarely done well, but Miller nails it here. The characters are believable for their age group, and the story depicts Magnolia’s and Iris’s insecurities and joys without getting too angsty or flippant, and their character growth comes without preachiness or saccharine. It also hits that rare sweet spot of being a book that’s perfectly pitched for its intended demographic while also being 100% readable for adults as well. Definitely recommended.

[blbooks-14314 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

First sentence: Magnolia Wu was almost ten. She was eager to turn ten, because the number 9 looked like a sprout coming out of the ground, small and easily stomped. Ten was a strong, two-digit number that looked like a sword and a shield that belonged to someone who was about to conquer the world.

Premise/plot: Magnolia Wu, whose parents own a laundromat, finds a new friend in this coming of age mystery that has Magnolia and friend (Iris) trekking all over New York City reuniting lost socks with their owners.

My thoughts: Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All is a Newbery Honor book. I may not have picked this one up--necessarily--if it hadn't been brought to my attention last week during the awards announcements. It is solidly good middle grade fiction. I enjoyed the themes of friendship and family--being/becoming proud of who you are and where you come from. I enjoyed Magnolia opening herself up and 'blossoming' as she adventures across the city. On her quest to reunite socks with their owners--which I find requires a bit of suspension of disbelief--it has her becoming more confident.

[salsabrarian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Whimsical, humorous, and delightful, and unexpectedly profound overall. A perfect middle grade book that doesn't skew older in characters or reading level. Magnolia created a bulletin board of socks left behind at her parents' laundry and Iris suggests they try to figure out the owners of the socks through stream of consciousness thinking. Magnolia's New York City is friendly as a small town and community-oriented; the girls wander the streets on their mission, unmolested, while engaging with the neighbors they meet along the way.

[foggidawn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ten-year-old Magnolia is expecting a long, boring summer hanging out at her parents' laundromat, but when new friend Iris arrives from California, the two girls set out on a summer of adventure, determined to return stranded single socks to their rightful owners. Can their new friendship survive the ups and downs of detective work?

This book is pitched to a slightly lower age range than the other Newbery Honor books of the year. While it is simple on the surface level, there are lots of interesting friendship dynamics, parent-child relationships, and social issues like race and class at play. While I found it unlikely that the girls would be able to re-home all of the socks, their New York City neighborhood has a small-town feeling where everybody seems to know everybody else, which works in their favor. A pleasant read.

[jennybeast · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was an absolutely delightful surprise -- I didn't know what to expect from the premise, but it's just such a great portrait of friendship, and community and the importance of looking around and being present. I love Magnolia and Iris' quest to reunite socks with their owners. I love all the small lessons that they collect along the way. I love that the book confronts hatred and bullying. I love that it celebrates the beauty that immigrants have always brought to this country. Gorgeous, accessible, full of heart. I also love the illustrations.