Pandita Paul doesn't like change. Pandita's not ready to start middle school. She does not want to lose her memories of her mother, who died a few years earlier. And she does not want to lose the secret place where she would spend time with her mother, at an abandoned house across the street. When the town decides that the old house must be bulldozed, and her town and her family divided on the issue, Pandita has to find her voice?and the strength to move on?in order to give her community hope. Hope in the Valley is a tale of grief, family, friendship and poetry?and of growing up in Silicon Valley, at a time when immigrants are looked at with suspicion.