Dragon's Gate (Golden Mountain Chronicles) - Hardcover

Yep, Laurence

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060229713 ISBN 13: 9780060229719

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1993

Synopsis

‘In rural China in 1865, 14-year-old Otter eagerly sails to California to join his father and legendary uncle on the transcontinental railroad. On a freezing, snow-filled mountain in the Sierras, Otter begins his harrowing journey toward self-knowledge. An engaging survival-adventure story, a social history, a heroic quest.’—BL. ‘Told with humanity and compassion… a tribute to the survival and courage of these immigrants.’—1994 Newbery Committee.

1994 Newbery Honor Book
Notable Children's Books of 1994 (ALA)
1994 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)
1993 "Pick of the Lists" (ABA)
1994 John and Patricia Beatty Award (California Library Association)
1994 Silver Medal for Literature (Commonwealth Club of America)

About this title

About the Author

Laurence Yep is the acclaimed author of more than sixty books for young people and a winner of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award. His illustrious list of novels includes the Newbery Honor Books Dragonwings and Dragon's Gate; The Earth Dragon Awakes: The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, a Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee; and The Dragon's Child: A Story of Angel Island, which he cowrote with his niece, Dr. Kathleen S. Yep, and was named a New York Public Library's "One Hundred Titles for Reading and Sharing" and a Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book.

Mr. Yep grew up in San Francisco, where he was born. He attended Marquette University, graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and received his PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He lives in Pacific Grove, California, with his wife, the writer Joanne Ryder.

1994 Newbery Honor Book
Notable Children's Books of 1994 (ALA)
1994 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)
1993 "Pick of the Lists" (ABA)
1994 John and Patricia Beatty Award (California Library Association)
1994 Silver Medal for Literature (Commonwealth Club of America)

Reviews

Grade 6-10-Yep uses the lively storytelling techniques of his "Dragon" fantasy-adventure novels to re-create a stirring historical event-here, the construction of the transcontinental railroad. Serpent's Children (1984) and Mountain Light (1985, both HarperCollins) described the political and natural disasters that led to widespread famine in 19th-century Southern China. Cassia and Foxfire, the "Serpent's Children," came from a long line of revolutionaries. Foxfire followed his dreams across the sea to the "Golden Mountain," California, where he earned enough money to revitalize his village. Dragon's Gate opens in China with Foxfire making a triumphant visit home. Otter, Cassia's adopted son, who tells the story, worships his uncle and longs to follow him back to the Golden Mountain. Granted his wish at last, Otter finds Foxfire working on "Snow Tiger," a mountain in the Sierra Nevada range, where Chinese laborers strive to hew a tunnel through solid rock. Appalled by the living conditions and disillusioned with his uncle, Otter must struggle to survive racial prejudice, cold, starvation, the foreman's whip, and the dangers of frostbite and avalanche while trying to reconcile his ideals and dreams with harsh reality, and to find his place in a strange land. Combining believable characters with thrilling adventure, Yep convinces readers that the Chinese railroad workers were indeed men to match the towering mountains of the west. Because the first few chapters, set in China, may be a bit confusing to children who have not read the previous two books, this will likely need booktalking.
Margaret A. Chang, North Adams State College, MA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Yep illuminates the Chinese immigrant experience here and abroad in a follow-up to The Serpent's Children (1984) and Mountain Light (1985). After accidentally killing one of the hated Manchu soldiers, Otter (14) flees Kwangtung for the ``Golden Mountain''; he finds his adoptive father Squeaky and Uncle Foxfire in the Sierra Nevada, where thousands of ``Guests'' are laboriously carving a path for the railroad. Brutal cold, dangerous work, and a harsh overseer take their toll as Squeaky is blinded in a tunnel accident, Foxfire is lost in a storm, and other workers are frozen or half-starved. By the end, toughened in body and spirit, Otter resolves never to forget them or their sacrifices. Foxfire and Otter consider themselves only temporary residents here, preparing for the more important work of modernizing their own country while ridding it of Manchu, Europeans, and, especially, the scourge of opium. America is a dreamlike place; English dialogue is printed in italics as a tongue foreign to most of the characters; and though Otter befriends the overseer's troubled son, such social contact is discouraged on both sides. In a story enlivened with humor and heroism, Yep pays tribute to the immigrants who played such a vital role in our country's history. Explanatory note; reading list. (Fiction. 11-14) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060229713
• ISBN 13: 9780060229719
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288