Based on the actual events of one of the worst race riots in American history, The Traitor is a powerful, haunting, and ultimately hopeful story about a unique friendship strong enough to bring two worlds together.īest friends Cal and Barney are down and out in Chinatown. When the town’s growing resentment toward the Chinese explodes in an event of horrifying cruelty, Michael and Joseph must trust each other with their lives. To them, life in America is a constant struggle against poverty, deprivation, and hate. Born in America but never feeling he belongs, Joseph burns with the desire to be a ‘real American boy’ a dream his father and the other Chinese laborers don’t understand. Despised by the American miners, the Chinese work for slave wages and in increasingly dangerous conditions. But life is even tougher for Joseph Young a Chinese American boy Michael’s age. At times bullied and bloodied and at other times ignored, Michael feels that he might as well be a ghost in this town of rough miners. Michael Purdy is an outcast in the small town of Rock Springs. Life is very tough in the Wyoming Territory in 1885 and not just because of the brutal environment. Notable Children’s Books of 1977 ALA1977 Boston Globe Horn Book Award for Fiction1978 Fanfare Honor List The Horn BookBest Books of 1977 SLJ1978 Jane Addams Children’s Book AwardChildren’s Books of 1977 Library of Congress
Combines the chiseled fantasy of Dragonwings with the anxiety of growing up poor and nonwhite. San Francisco’s Chinatown of the early 60s is the testing ground for 12 year old Casey who, in finding her roots, forfeits her faith in her compulsive gambler father. Laurence Yep’s fine novel illuminates a rich world of truth, humor, and discovery. And as Casey begins to understand the intricacies of Chinatown and the people who become her friends, she realizes that this, Paw Paw’s home, Jeanie and Barney’s home, is her home too. This shows Casey that being a Child of the Owl means that sometimes, like this ancestral owl spirit, you can feel like a stranger, trapped in the wrong place, in the wrong time, even in the wrong body. But Paw Paw tells Casey about Jeanie, the mother Casey never knew, about her true Chinese name, and about the story of the family’s owl charm. She’s not prepared for the Chinese school, the crowds, the noise, the small room she has to share with Paw Paw and she’s not prepared for missing Barney. I knew more about race horses than I knew about myself I mean myself as a Chinese.’Race horses aren’t any help when Barney lands in the hospital and Casey is sent to live with Paw Paw her maternal grandmother in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Dragonwings alone won nine awards in 1975-76, while in 1989, Rainbow People won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Award.ĭragon of the Lost Sea, HarperCollins, 1982.‘I can’t remember when Barney’s story began but all my life I’d heard this story about how a little girl and her father were going to hit it big one of these days… Laurence has received numerous awards for the many books he has written. In recent years he has explored the rich mythology of China in his writing. Yep's books have dealt with the outsider. Approaching that culture as somewhat of a stranger, I have been fascinated by all its aspects." All of Mr. He comments, "Having been raised in a Black ghetto and having commuted to a bilingual school in Chinatown, I did not confront White American culture until high school. His Chinese-American background is central to the spirit of many of his novels. He has been a part-time instructor of English, a visiting lecturer in Asian American Studies and a writer-in-residence. He attended Marquette University, the University of California atSanta Cruz, and the State University of New York at Buffalo where he recieved his Ph.D.
Laurence Yep is a native Californian born in San Francisco. A Celebration of Literature for Children and Young AdultsĬalgary Convention Centre ~ October 3-5, 1996 ~ Calgary, Alberta