The City of Dragons [Library Binding]

Laurence Yep (Author), Jean Tseng (Author, Illustrator), Mou-Sien Tseng (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1995 | Age Level: 5 and up

A fantasy-filled tale offers a haunting fable about a magical kingdom, a hunt for treasures, and a boy with the saddest face in the world. By the author of Dragonwings and the illustrators of The Seven Chinese Brothers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Once there was a boy with the saddest face in the world. Even when he was happy, everyone who saw him thought he must be sad, and they became sad, too." Embellishing the memory of an disfigured, outcast boy of his childhood with folklore from southern China, Yep deftly crafts an imaginative moral tale. Shunned because of his disturbing appearance although he is both polite and good, the boy runs away with a band of giants that hunts for pearls?the tears of dragons. The jaded dragons are impervious to the saddest of the giants' tales; but when they see the boy's sorrowful face, they weep bowlfuls and the boy, returning home with the gems, receives a hero's welcome. Just as the author does with his dialogue, the Tsengs (illustrators of Yep's The Boy Who Swallowed Snakes) spike their exotic, mystical watercolors with just enough humor to leaven a potentially heavy theme?the value and power of one's uniqueness. Fresh, unusual and impressive, this is a worthy addition to the ever-expanding Yep collection. Ages 5-9.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 3?"Once there was a boy with the saddest face in the world." To avoid upsetting people, he wears a large straw hat to cover it. The villagers still fear being affected by his misery, so he runs away from home. He joins a band of giants who decide that he is bravely enduring a terrible sadness and has "...a giant's heart in a boy's body." They take him under the sea to the city of dragons, where his face proves useful in inducing the dragon maidens to cry pearls. Returning home rich with silk and gems, the boy is now judged by what he has done rather than by how he looks. The moral is weakened by the fact that his usefulness to the giants is due to his outward appearance, not his actions. The Tsengs are skillful watercolorists, and the illustrations carefully follow the text. Wisely, the boy's face is not clearly shown, leaving readers to imagine its sorrowful expression. However, the depiction of the giants in relation to the boy does not always covey their enormity. Often, they merely look like large adults. The dragon maidens, on the other hand, with their silk kimonos, hair in topknots, and faces that are a cross between human and lizard, are imaginatively strange. Both author and illustrators seem constrained by the story itself and, despite their talents, it never fully comes to life.?Karen James, Louisville Free Public Library, KY
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Library Binding: 1 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic Trade; 1st ed edition (September 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0590478656
• ISBN-13: 978-0590478656
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 9.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,947,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Laurence Yep has been fascinated with tales of sibling rivalry from the day he was born. His older brother, Tom, chose his name Laurence - after a saint who died a particularly gruesome death. Laurence has been trying to get even ever since. Laurence Yep now lives in Pacific Grove, California, with his wife and is one of children's literature's most respected authors. His award-winning titles include Newbery Honor Books Dragonwings and Dragon's Gate.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a life so fantastic, it doesn't seem true, April 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Woman Who Ran for President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull (Paperback)

This is an amazing biography of Victoria C. Woodhull a little known suffragist and spirtualist of the late 19th Century. Growing up poor in a dysfunctional Ohio family she pulled herself up from poverty to become a leading sufferagist as well as opening with her sister the first female owned wallstreet brokerage company. This is just the tip of the iceberg as she ran for president in the 1870's, exposed a huge scandal concerning a leading New York minister, and eventually married into one of the richest families in England. Her ideas and opinions on sexuality, divorce, and women's rights were a hundred years before her time. She was no saint; her unconventional and adventurous lifestyle recieved much criticism and was her eventual undoing in society. Her life is more fantasic and entertaining than fiction. Victoria Woodhull has been hidden in the closet like a skeleton for too long; if you read any non-fiction this year, read this book!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ancestor, August 1, 2009

By 

Marcia L. Wardwell "reader" (NH, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Woman Who Ran for President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull (Paperback)

I was surprised that Amazon had this on their front page. Victoria Claflin Woodhull Martin is a distant relation
on my Mother's side. There is a Claflin Familly Association that meets yearly in July and we just celebrated
our 155th continuous reunion. We have had quite a few of our reunions at the Claflin-Richard House in Wenham,Ma.
I own this book and found it extremely informative and very interesting. I have been to Tewekesbury, England
and have seen the abbey where there is a Commemorative plaque honoring her. I have also been to Bredon's Norton
and have had dinner. It's a beautiful stately mansion. In 1988 The State of Ohio erected a marker in Homer.
Ohio to honor her. There are many other books on her life and times that are also worth reading.

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Woodhull, a woman out of her time, July 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Woman Who Ran for President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull (Paperback)

This biography is actually quite good - and overdue. Underhill seems to be not much 'captured' by her amorous and dominant beta female subject. (That's a common problem in biography). There are certain problems about V. Woodhull however, as there are about all prominent persons. She was, as was her sister, a courtesan, a New Age Spiritualist (inspired by the Fox 'knuckle cracker' sisters). Amazingly, a NY female Wall Street stockbroker!, a female candidate for president! Not much came of either, but she remained amazing anyway.
That she married some rich English baron or other and moved to England, thereafter supporting her neer do well relatives (including her mother) for decades (as she had in the States), seems beside the point, except that it's clear that she finally gave up the fight. As she saw it - or are we merely imagining how she saw it? Perhaps we expect too much from Victoria, and given her times, she pretty much gets a pass. She caused not such harm as Ellen White, Madam Blavatsky or Mary Baker Eddy. Give thanks.
Part of this biography delves into the internal feuds in the early 1st wave feminist movement, which tells us a bit about 'power seeking' (even in females), as does the life of Woodhull herself. At each stage of her (and her relatives) life, there are powerful males, her father, the drunken doctor she marries young, Cornelias Vanderbilt, her literary second husband, General Ben Butler, whoever is male and useful. Excepting her father, they all get sexed, and they all are useful. Not that such maneuvering towards the top by women is all that uncommon in the last 4,000 years of human history. That it's a woman's way, does not one thinks, make it a life to emulate in the modern feminist movement. I'll take Abigail Adams anytime.