"I knew more about race horses than I knew about myself—I mean myself as a Chinese," says Casey, a street-wise, jeans-wearing twelve-year-old. Then her father Barney's gambling habit lands him in the hospital, the victim of a beating, and Casey is sent to live with her Paw-Paw (grandmother) in the small, tight world that was San Francisco's Chinatown during the early Sixties. Marked as an outsider by her inability to speak Chinese and, for the first time, questioning the Americanized values of friends like Tallulah "Booger" Chew (whose ambition is to design clothes for Katy Keene comics) and Gilbert, who models himself after James Dean, Casey comes to think of herself as a child of the Owl-Spirit—the family's ancestress according to Paw-Paw and the central figure of a long, dreamlike legend that has been handed down through the generations. But while the Owl-Spirit helps Casey to find her way as an alien caught between two cultures and to feel close to the mother she never knew, it is the toughness she's learned from Barney that sends her out on a hunt for the burglar who steals Paw-Paw's valuable owl charm. Visions of herself as both a Kung Fu heroine and child of the owl clash when Casey, Booger, and Paw-Paw's elderly friend, Mr. Jeh, capture the thief and are horrified to discover his identity. Yet even the surprise ending fits seamlessly into Yep's vision, which combines the chiseled fantasy of Dragonwings (1975) with the hard-edged anxieties of growing up poor and non-white in the early Beatles era. This is played out against a background of underheated walk-up flats, cheap souvenir shops, and memories of the old China where dream-souls wandered the earth at night, a beautifully transmuted Chinatown legend, and an odds-on popular favorite as well.
Pub Date: April 1, 1977
ISBN: 978-0-673-70372-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1977
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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