At first scoop, Digging to America seems like an innocent straight forward novel about two couples who adopt baby girls from Korea. It is about how these couples' lives intersect: they both recieve their precious girls on the same day.

But dig a litter deeper into the novel, and you find that maybe it is really about what it means to adopt a child. Dig a little deeper, and maybe it questions culture and heritage and assimilation. Both families that adopt these Korean children live in America, and neither family is Korean. The Donaldsons are "very American," or white breads, as they put it. The Yazdans are Iranian: the husband was born and bred in America but his wife, Ziba, was raised in Iran until her teenage years.

The relationship between the Donaldsons and the Yazdans is also worth "digging into." Bitsy and Brad Donaldson (Tyler picks the best names) and Sami and Zabi Yazdan are the parents of these two Korean girls. Bitsy seems to hold some subtle power over Ziba; whenever Bitsy declares something about parenting, Ziba experiences a moment of doubt and confusion. Is this because Bitsy is older than Ziba? Or, is it because the Iranians are so polite that they would never think of offering unwanted advice like the Americans do? Or, is it because Bitsy is so undeniably American, Ziba feels intimidated by her?

There are so many levels to "belonging" in our lives. How does one belong to a group, a family, a culture, a country? Relationships are messy and complex, sort of like digging in the dirt. With every scoopful of dirt, the mixture shifts and alters. Tyler captures these subtle variations in relationships: between cultures, countries, the sexes, and generations.

The Donaldsons decide that their baby will keep her Korean name, but the Yazdans opt to Americanize their daughter's name. Are the Donaldsons just being politically correct? Or, is it that they feel so at home in America, they don't need to prove their daughter's right to claim America as her country? Do the Yazdans feel they need to claim an American name for their Iranian-American-Korean daughter? And what culture should their daughter embrace? America's? Korea's? Iran's? Or, a mixture of all?

Dig a little deeper, and you realize that there are no simple answers to any of these assimilation questions. Sami Yazdun considers himself American: he has never been to Iran and has no desire to go, and he refuses to speak Farsi. Yet, when he is around his Iranian relatives ,they discuss the Americans as if they are a different entity. Which in many ways, they are. And when he met his wife he felt an instant kinship to her because of their shared Iranian culture. But he is American; or is he?

Most of the story is told by Sami's mother, Maryam, who emigrated to America as a bride. All these years later, she still feels like a foreigner to this country, but when she goes home she feels like a foreigner there too. Those of us who have only lived in one country might take for granted how at home we feel in our own country. There are many degrees and levels of assimilation: and should people assimilate at all?

Even though Maryam has lived in the United States her entire adult life, and her son Sami has always lived here, they are essentially still digging to America...

l Highly recommend this novel to all! Keep on reading!