FIRE DRAGON

by Barbara Benezra ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1970

Conquering prejudice is the theme of this scraggly saga of a Sino-American friendship born in the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake, but before any stereotypes are debunked they're first firmly (fallaciously) erected. Sam Watkins, seventeen, ""had to laugh"" at ""the tide of Oriental people leaving Chinatown,"" ""in spite of his own misery""; ""they had always presented such a comical picture to him""--and he recalls his chants of ""Ching Chong Chinaman"" and the stories of opium dens. Even when, on becoming separated from his family during the holocaust, he camps with the Lees who are grateful for his rescue of their daughter, Sam persists in making those faux pas, irritating their college-bound son Charlie. The boys become close, however, as they work together fighting fires, saving artwork, and digging graves: both check the Red Cross for news of the Watkins', and both protest to the Mayor about the city's gross maltreatment of the Chinese. An eventual reunion is marred by Sam's mother's bigotry toward Orientals, so the re-educating goes on; but it never goes back, in the idiom of the day, to a tell-tale Fleudian slip about those ""shanties filled with happy carefree Italians.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Abelard-Schuman

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1970

Categories: FICTION