Customer Reviews

The Case of the Goblin Pearls (Chinatown Mystery, No 1)

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The Case of the Goblin Pearls by Laurence Yep is an exiting, well-written, fast-paced book that draws the reader into an intricate plot. Lily, a 12-year-old Chinese American girl, is drawn into a mystery when her great aunt, a famous old movie star, comes to plan a float in the New Years parade. The Goblin Pearls, famous for their size, are stolen during the New Years parade and it is up to Lily and her great aunt to solve the mystery. Meanwhile, Lily discovers what life can be like for a poor family from China who desperately need money while she makes a new, unexpected friend. I would recommend this book because it is exiting and teaches you about Chinese immigrants. This book gets really exiting when Lily finds one of the pearls that came off the chain. She is in a restaurant and she wanders to the ladies room down a dark hall. No one knows she is there. She has just entered the stall when the lights go out. In the following scene, a mysterious person tries to kidnap her and get back the pearl. In the less fictional aspect, Lily makes friends with an immigrant girl from China. She lives with her mother and siblings. They are very poor and the mother has not been paid for three months. Altogether, this book rounds up excitement, mystery and truth in one. This is why I recommend it. Some people might not agree that the book is very informative about Chinese-American culture. They might think this because the book is mostly a mystery. I still believe though that the book tells a lot about what life is like for poor Chinese immigrants. It also tells about some rich Chinese in America. Not only does the reader learn about Chinese Americans and China Town, but they also learn about different of Chinese that is spoken. So if you enjoy a mystery while learning, this is a great book for you.

While this book is far from being one of Yep's best works, it is a very important book and not a bad read at all. While focusing on the mystery at hand, Yep includes many details and authentic attributes of Chinese American culture. With so few books of varying genre available by minority authors, this is a great one to read.

The plot line of the story is that the ancient Goblon Pearls are stolen at the parade and it is up to Lily to find out who stole them. I personally thought this book was too short and didn't be very descriptive.

This tells the story of a 12-year-old girl in San Francisco's Chinatown named Lily...who uses words such as 'madame'...'impeccable'...and knows an 'athletic build' while looking at a much older man, and makes a reference such as 'more slippery than a USC tailback.'

The 'mystery' of this piece starts a few chapters in during a parade, and is kind of dropped, then resurfaces towards the end of the book.

Even though this was a quick read, I didn't find any characters to root for; and, I couldn't get into the story. There wasn't really a flow in the way things unfolded.

The way the characters spoke, especially Lily, seemed unrealistic. Lily speaks as if she is in a fantasy world, or even if she is an older woman; and the people around Lily also talk, or are written as romanticized characters from a Disney film.