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5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, superb, and other words of adulation, Jan 24 2004
Here's the first sentence of "Child of the Owl":
"It was hard to understand Barney with the air tubes up his nose".And from that sentence on it this book becomes one of the most readable I have ever encountered. Have you ever entered into a book, not knowing what to expect but suspecting that it's not going to retain your interest for very long? Knowing what little I did about "Child of the Owl", I walked into this gem of kiddie lit with more than a little trepidation. What I found was a story that was funny, touching, and ultimately informative. I'm naturally wary of books that are supposed to be "good" for children. That will teach them lessons about diversity while maintaining a sticky sweet didactic tone. But "Child of the Owl" isn't like that at all. Instead, it is honest-to-goodness gold. The plot is especially good. Young streetwise Casey must leave her gambler father to live with her Grandmother in San Francisco's Chinatown for a little while. Laurence Yep has effectively written a tale that captures the spirit of a person never fully feeling as if they fit in. As the blurb on the cover of the books says, sometimes, "you can feel like a stranger, trapped in the wrong place, in the wrong time, even in the wrong body". What makes the book so eminently readable, however, is the care with which Yep has drawn upon his own experiences in 1964 Chinatown, to explain and examine Casey's reactions to life in that once tiny neighborhood. Now if I was going to make a collection of Top Ten Children's Books Set In San Francisco, "Child of the Owl" would be number one. It would also be number one of Top Ten Intergenerational Children's Books and Top Ten Children's Books Containing Sarcastic Wisecracking Kids. Sorry Gilly Hopkins. Casey's got you beat. As a heroine she's funny, smart, and filled with reactions appropriate to a pre-adolescent. I highly recommend this book to any child wanting to learn more about the Chinese-American experience of living in America. The book speaks volumes to those living then and now. It is a book to be remembered.
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