Book Review of The Earth Dragon Awakes: The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Yep, Lawrence. (2006). THE EARTH DRAGON AWAKES: THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE OF 1906. New York, NY: HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 9780060275259.

 

PLOT SUMMARY

The Sing family and the Travis family live in 1906 San Francisco. Mr. Sing is employed as the servant of the Travis family. There is a good relationship between the families, and the sons of the families are best friends. The Sing family lives in Chinatown, and the Travis family lives in a different neighborhood on the other side of San Francisco. One morning there is a huge earthquake. It destroys the homes of both families and many others. Many people are killed and injured. Fires break out throughout the city. The Sing family and the Travis family end up finding shelter together. Eventually the fires are put out. The Travis family, the Sing family, and many other people begin rebuilding their homes and the city.           

 

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This is an excellent book for showing human nature in the face of extreme hardship. There are examples of the worse side of humanity: selfishness, price-gouging, and cruelty. However, there are also examples of the best side of humanity: bravery, courage, and sacrifice. The firemen, volunteers, and other first responders show how selfless people can be when they are most needed. This book is also good for showing the results of natural disaster in a large city. The effects of the earthquake on the infrastructure (buildings, streets, and gas pipes) and the subsequent fires that result following the initial damage are told with eloquent descriptions. The back to the back has an afterward, selected readings, websites, and historic photos to continue the readers’ studies.   

 

AWARDS AND REVIEW EXCERPTS

KIRKUS review: “It is notable especially for the attention paid to the experience of San Francisco’s Chinese immigrants, and a good choice for reluctant readers.”

HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY review: “The Earth Dragon Awakes by award-winning author Laurence Yep tells the story of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 from the alternating perspective of two young friends... Yep does a marvelous job interspersing facts about the earthquake with the fictional stories of the boys.”

 

CONNECTIONS

* This is a good book to tie-in to studies of San Francisco, earthquakes, and Chinese immigration & assimilation into America.

* Other books related to this one:

Yep, Lawrence. DRAGONWINGS: GOLDEN MOUNTAIN CHRONICLES: 1903. ISBN 9780064400855.

Yep, Lawrence. DRAGON’S GATE. GOLDEN MOUNTAIN CHRONICLES: 1867. ISBN 9780064404891.

Bybee, Veeda. LILY AND THE GREAT QUAKE: A SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE SURVIVAL STORY. ISBN 9781496592170


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
      Infographics                 Infographics is a method of conveying information in a concise and eye-catching way. In various incarnations, infographics can be traced as far back as the beginning of book illustrations. One such example is the illustration of “sunspots in  Rosa Ursina sive Sol , an illustrated astronomical text published by Christoph Scheiner in 1626 . ” (Evers, 2015) Another example of infographics from the 1600’s was Galileo Galilei’s Sidereus Nuncius , published in 1610. Galilei’s work used infographics to share information about Earth’s moon, the moons of Saturn, and various constellations. Thus, it can be argued that the use of infographics is 400 years old. Some have argued that infographics goes back as far as prehistoric cave paintings or Egyptian hieroglyphs, but I prefer to limit our historical identification of the usage of infographics to the post-Gutenberg press era, from the 1400’s onward. The term infographic comes from combining the t
Read more
  REVIEW OF A BIG BED FOR LITTLE SNOW   A. BIBLIOGRAPHY Lin, Grace. 2019. A BIG BED FOR LITTLE SNOW . New York City, NY: Little, Brown Books For Young Readers. ISBN 9780316478366.   B. PLOT SUMMARY At the beginning of the winter season, a boy named Little Snow gets a new bed made for him by his mother. She reminds him that it is for sleeping on, not for jumping on. He agrees to sleep on the bed, not jump on it. That night, after his mother left from tucking him in, Little Snow started jumping on his bed. When he heard his mother coming back, he lay down and pretended he hadn’t been doing anything. The next morning, after he had woken up, he decided to jump on his bed some more. When he heard his mother coming, he laid back down and pretended he hadn’t been jumping on his bed. That winter, Little Snow enjoyed jumping on his bed whenever his mother was not around. One time when he was jumping on his bed, when he landed on it he made a rip in it. Whenever he jumped on
Read more