- Hardcover
- Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (Feb 13 1996)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 051716602X
- ISBN-13: 978-0517166024
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 14.7 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 590 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
When we first meet Kai Ting, the seven-year-old hero of this compelling, autobiographical first novel, he has just been ground into the pavement by the neighborhood bully--the most recent incident in a long series of calamities. Kai Ting is the youngest child but the only son of high-born Chinese parents who, before his birth, fled China's Communist revolution, leaving their wealth behind. Kai Ting was born in the San Francisco ghetto where his family had relocated in the mid-1940s. Survival in this urban jungle is made all the more difficult for him by severely impaired eyesight and "a body that made Tinker Bell look ruthless." His mother, once his sole refuge from the ruffians on the street, has died of cancer, and his father has married a WASP who cannot abide anything Chinese--especially her husband's children. Their father turns a blind eye as his wife locks the children out of the house during the day; Kai Ting's return at night with bruises and torn clothes becomes an excuse for a second beating, this time at home. Redemption does come, after a fashion, but it is hard-fought and painfully won. This is the Chinese-American experience as Dickens might have described it, peopled by many rogues and a few saints. Lee's characters--blacks, Hispanics, whites and Asians--tend to extremes of good and evil, but, vividly drawn and intensely human, they are never stereotypes. His story is a primer on how to keep body and soul together in a world that is as gritty as the streets of his hero's neighborhood and seems often dangerously out of control. 50,000 first printing; Literary Guild selection; author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
YA-- A warm, engaging story of seven-year-old Kai Ting, set in the tough Panhandle District of San Francisco in the 1950s. Lee includes all of the classic fairy-tale conventions: a wicked stepmother; a totally obnoxious bully, Big Willie Mack, who lives to beat Kai into pulp; Toussaint La Rue, a street-wise paladin who befriends him; and the YMCA "Knights" who teach this David to stand up to his street Goliath. Kai's Merlin is his Uncle Shim, a Mandarin scholar who longs to pass on his classical learning to Most Able Student Kai, the only living son of his father's Shanghai family. Readers will weep with Kai when he's locked out of the house and left as prey to the McAllister street bullies. They'll laugh with him when he confuses English idioms and ethnic street slang. They'll root heartily for him during his survival training at the Y where he transforms his body into a disciplined fighting machine, and cheer loudly when he learns to deal with the ghosts who haunt him. This timeless, magically told tale of growing up and coming of age is a perfect companion to Tan's Joy Luck Club (Putnam, 1989) or Kingston's Woman Warrior (Knopf, 1976). --Dolores M. Steinhauer, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
info on kai ting,
By REGINA GARRETT (usa) - See all my reviews
This review is from: China Boy (Paperback)
in china boy i need to find some information kai ting and what are he doing in the book.
3.0 out of 5 stars
I didn't expect the novel to be like this...,
By Tiffany H. (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: China Boy (Paperback)
If I was to rate this novel on the scale of 1-10, I will give it a score of 5 because I dislike Kai Ting?s parents throughout the whole book, especially when he didn?t really do anything about it. Edna (stepmother) dislike Kai Ting because of his poor English and the clothes he wears. Edna would not let Kai Ting in the house afterschool and lets him get beat up on the streets, not caring where he got all the bruises on his body. Kai Ting?s father did not ask Kai Ting whether he likes Edna or not and barely spend time with his son. I find that parents in this novel have a major problem in taking care of their kids and loving them. Personally I feel that Kai Ting?s stepmother is ?self-centered? because Edna does not care about him and she has a lack of communication with Kai Ting when problems appear. I find it terrible for his father to keep Kai Ting?s mother death away from him causing him to have immaginations of his mother visiting China. Settling down and discussing the problem can help the father and Kai Ting go through the hardship together. I will not recommentd this novel if you are a reader who is looking to solve problems verbally than physically. I was expecting this book to have Kai Ting?s family and himself going through different obstacles together and learn how they live through life in San Francisco. Instead it ended up that Kai Ting learns how to box and solves his problems physically than verbally.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Self-Pitying Yawn,
By A Customer
This review is from: China Boy (Paperback)
I found the main character way too self-involved and written t be overly cute. Yuck. It's awful to read a book with characters you don't even like. The bulk of the plot was describing Kai's boxing life with the YMCA. Who cares? I was left asking, "What happened later?". It's a shame because the story would have been of some interest in had focused more on his relationships with other people and his life in general. The little biography on the flapcover was more interesting that his memior. Overall it was quite disappointing- too bad good writing had to go to waste.
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