Child of the Owl: Amazon.ca: Laurence Yep: Books

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-- School Library Journal

"An exciting and well plotted story." --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description

Twelve-year-old Casey is waiting for the day that Barney, her father, hits it big -- 'cause when that horse comes in, he tells her, it's the penthouse suite. But then hr ends up in the hospital, and Casey is sent to Chinatown to live with her grandmother, Paw-Paw. Now the waiting seems longer than ever.

Casey feels lost in Chinatown. She's not prepared for the Chinese school, the noisy crowds, missing her father. But Paw-Paw tells her about the mother Casey never knew, and about her family's owl charm and her true Chinese name. And Casey at last begins to understand that this -- Paw-Paw's Chinatown home, her parents' home -- is her home,too. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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First Sentence
It was hard to understand Barney with the air tubes up his nose. Read the first page

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

28 Reviews

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

Average Customer Review

4.1 out of 5 stars (28 customer reviews)

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3.0 out of 5 stars childs owl, Mar 11 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Child of the Owl (Library Binding)

Child of the Owl
Child of the Owl is an average book, it's about a Chinese girl that isn't wanted anywhere, and she loves her uncle. His name is Barney. He is a gambler, and he just lost big to big Mike. So she goes to paw paws house and lives there for a while. Many interesting things happen to Casey. Barney eventually gets his money back, and Casey lives with him. I did not like this book very much because, it got a little boring while Casey was at paw paw's house, there where a few interesting parts though, like when she went to her aunts house, her aunt had a husband and lots of other people in her family and they kept getting mad at Casey they thought she was dressed poorly and even thought she was a hoodlum. That was probably the most exciting and must interesting part in the story it was also very funny this books vocabulary was a little easy, and the author didn't use very many exciting words.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, superb, and other words of adulation, Jan 24 2004

By	E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Child Of The Owl (pb Repkg) (Paperback)

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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3.0 out of 5 stars it was okay, Jun 21 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Child Of The Owl (pb Repkg) (Paperback)

I read this book a long time ago in middle school and personally was able to relate to some of her Casey's feelings and experiences but I don't really remember what happened in the story. Don't take my word for it because I never paid that much attention to what I read back then. It was okay and she resembles some of my cousin and me when we were younger but I guess my parents would've thought she was silly. Thats all I remembered about it and the rest was okay but I guess its been too long ago since I read this book to write a review for it anyway.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Starter Book Asian American Youth
I found this book on the shelf of my 5th grade classroom 14 years ago, and it completely changed my life. Read more

Published on Jun 15 2003 by jess w.

2.0 out of 5 stars A slow-plotted book
I found that Child of the Owl was not a book i enjoyed. Although the characters were not trite or shallow in anyway, and protreayed reliable characters, the plot was extremly slow... Read more

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5.0 out of 5 stars good
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Published on Jul 9 2002 by Amy Feinberg

5.0 out of 5 stars Good book
So far im about 46 pages into the book,and its great.I like the humor parts and plot.Theres a good moral in this book,thats what I look for in a book.Its great and funny. Read more

Published on Jan 25 2002