Customer Reviews

Brothers

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Brothers is a gentle story of a Chinese immigrant boy, Ming, who arrives in San Francisco in the mid 19th century to live with his two brothers and help them run their small store in Chinatown. Ming's desire for friendship pulls him across the boundary of his neighborhood where he befriends an Irish immigrant, Patrick O'Farrell, whose family came to America to escape starvation. The boys teach each other about their respective cultures and languages as well as devise a plan to save Ming's brothers' failing business.

This upbeat tale is narrated in the present tense by Ming and is accompanied by artist Chris Soentpiet's beautifully detailed paintings depicting Ming's new world as a happy, bustling community. Written at a primary level, this book introduces to young readers some basic historical facts about immigrants from China and Ireland who came to America 150 years ago while telling a story of friendship and acceptance. The Soentpiets, a husband and wife author/illustrator team, have also published the picture book Coolies, also about Chinese immigrants.

The main character in this book is a young Chinese immigrant who comes to San Francisco to help his (slightly) older brothers. Like many immigrants, they live and stay in an isolated community- and like many immigrants, they have good reason to be afraid of those on the outside. However, the young boy yearns for companionship of people his own age, and soon makes a friend of a young Irish immigrant. The two form an instant friendship, and through that the boy is able to save his family's store and eventually reunite his brothers.

In adult American history, much stress is put on the competition for resources and the animosity, resentment and violence that immigrant groups suffered as a result- particularly the very unprotected Chinese. All of that is implied in the older brother's warning that the boy should stay "with his own kind." However, it bears repeating, particularly in a children's story, that cooperation is far better for groups than tooth-baring competition. We can only hope that these two continued their friendship as they grew older and found other ways of bringing such cooperation to both of their communities.

Few children's book today can capture and engage my chidren's interest as much as BROTHERS. The illustrations reminds me of my history books I've collected about China. Obviously the illustrator have done his homework. All the details are richly depicted and accurately painted. If you want to know about Chinese American history or how Chinatown came to be, BROTHERS is a must have. This is a wonderful gift for any teacher or student wanting to learn about multi-cultural history. Although this is a children's book, this book is a welcome addition to all social studies curriculum on elementary, middle-school and high school levels. College art school professors can benefit by sharing with their students the beautiful watercolour and realistic paintings. Very few children's book today can capture the historical sensitivity and realism than Soentpiet's work.