Laurence Yep

This book is about fifteen year-old Joan Lee, a Chinese-American. Her family has moved to West Virginia to open a laundry business. The community is not very accepting of the family. Her family experiences name calling and vandalism. Joan finds friendship with her landlady, Mrs. Lucy and another outcast, Bernice.

The author helps the readers to know the characters by describing the characters physically and including dialogue. We really get to know the main character, Joan Lee, as her thoughts, feelings, and actions are shared as she tells the story. Readers also feel a twinge of sympathy for Joan’s parents who speak little or no English, have a struggling family business, and rely on their children for certain tasks. Yet the parents stay strong for their children.

This is a great book that covers many important themes. Many students will relate to the characters because they are treated differently because of their ethnicity and family background. This book could be used in the language arts, social studies, and character education classes. This is an entertaining book with many valuable lessons.

I enjoyed reading this book. This book provides excellent lessons for readers such as accepting others and overcoming prejudices. I believe that everyone feels that they were prejudiced against for one reason or another such as color of their skin, sex, weight, height, sexual orientation, and hair color. I think that students will benefit reading about characters their age that overcome prejudices. This book could be a start of deep classroom discussions about prejudices and accepting others that are different.
Laurence Yep has written many other books such as The Case of teh Goblin Pearls, Child of the Owl, Dragon Cauldron, and Dragon Steel to name a few.