Drawing on the reminiscences of her father-in-law, Lee details 12-year-old Sun’s emigration to San Francisco from China in 1915. Sun’s father, a merchant with a U.S. business, informs Sun that he will join his brothers, studying and working in America. Sun’s tutor painstakingly prepares him for the challenges of immigration. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese immigrants, many of them boys, were detained on Angel Island, awaiting hours of interrogation about the minutiae of their families and villages. Officials sought inconsistencies exposing “paper sons”—boys posing as the offspring of U.S. citizens or merchants. Though a “true son,” Sun worries that his poor sense of direction will cause him to answer incorrectly. Lee’s narration of Sun’s weeks on Angel Island—waiting, befriending two paper sons, and enduring the grueling interviews—is plain and measured, reflecting the serious burden Sun withstands. Choi’s full-bleed and spot illustrations employ muted greens and ochres to depict village scenes, the sea journey and the detention center. This testament to the pull of “Gold Mountain” offers a bit of Chinese-American history in a handsome package. (author’s note) (Picture book. 7-11)
Pub Date: March 3, 2006
ISBN: 0-374-34314-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The journey is even gently funny—Omakayas’s brother spends much of the year with a porcupine on his head. Charming and...
This third entry in the Birchbark House series takes Omakayas and her family west from their home on the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker, away from land the U.S. government has claimed.
Difficulties abound; the unknown landscape is fraught with danger, and they are nearing hostile Bwaanag territory. Omakayas’s family is not only close, but growing: The travelers adopt two young chimookoman (white) orphans along the way. When treachery leaves them starving and alone in a northern Minnesota winter, it will take all of their abilities and love to survive. The heartwarming account of Omakayas’s year of travel explores her changing family relationships and culminates in her first moon, the onset of puberty. It would be understandable if this darkest-yet entry in Erdrich’s response to the Little House books were touched by bitterness, yet this gladdening story details Omakayas’s coming-of-age with appealing optimism.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-029787-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
Ohkwa'ri and his twin sister, Otsi:stia, 11, are late-15th century Mohawks living in what would become New York State. Both are exemplary young people: He is brave, kind, and respectful of his elders, and she is gentle and wise beyond her years. One day Ohkwa'ri hears an older youth, Grabber, and his cronies planning to raid a nearby Abenaki village, in violation of the Great League of Peace to which all the Iroquois Nations have been committed for decades. When Ohkwa'ri reports what he has heard to the tribal elders he makes a deadly enemy of Grabber. Grabber's opportunity for revenge comes when the entire tribe gathers for the great game of Tekwaarathon (later, lacrosse). Ohkwa'ri knows that he will be in great danger during the long day of play and will have to use all his wits and skills to save himself and his honor. Bruchac (Between Earth and Sky, p. 445, etc.) saturates his novel with suspense, generating an exciting story that also offers an in-depth look at Native American life centuries ago. The book also offers excellent insights into the powerful role of women in what most readers will presume was a male-dominated society. Thoroughly researched; beautifully written. (Fiction. 8- 11)
Pub Date: June 1, 1996
ISBN: 0140385045
Page Count: 155
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1996
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