Dragon Road: Golden Mountain Chronicles: 1939 [Hardcover]

Laurence Yep (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up | Series: Golden Mountain Chronicles

Best friends Cal and Barney are down and out in Chinatown. In the America of 1939, they are trapped by invisible barriers created by racial prejudice. With no jobs and no real homes, it's only their wizardry with a basketball that's let them survive this long.

That same skill suddenly flings a door open to fame and fortune when a professional basketball team, the Dragons, invites them to join the team. Soon they're barnstorming across America and taking on all comers—from local amateurs to other professional teams like the Harlem Globetrotters.

On that long, difficult road, they must battle rowdy teams and their even rougher fans on makeshift courts. Cal, aka Flash, and the team must also overcome terrible weather, crumbling highways, and their own disintegrating car. As the tour starts to fall apart, the tension between Cal and the team's jealous captain comes to a head. Suddenly Cal must choose between loyalty to his teammates and the pursuit of his own celebrity.

Inspired by the pioneering professional Chinese American basketball team the Hong Wah Kues, Newbery Honor author Laurence Yep re-creates a colorful era of barnstorming basketball and leads readers through the heartache and glory of the dragon road.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5 Up—As a person of Chinese ancestry who dares to venture beyond the confines of his own ethnic enclave, Calvin "Flash" Chin, a recent high-school graduate, finds the America of 1939 to be a dangerous place. Persuaded by a couple of fast-talking recruiters to join a barnstorming basketball team composed entirely of Chinese Americans, he leaves the safety of San Francisco's Chinatown to travel with his teammates to small towns throughout the West, playing against the local talent. The stories that Calvin has heard of violence against previous generations of Chinese workers are never far from his mind, and he learns firsthand that unthinking, knee-jerk hostility toward all outsiders is still very much a part of the American landscape. Prejudice both crude and subtle is pervasive, as is the threat of violence. Neither the natural beauty of the land nor the joy of athletic competition ever completely dispels the atmosphere of menace. Calvin, straddling two cultures, draws comfort and solace from his heritage even as he explicitly rejects the spirit of interconnectedness that animates his elders' worldview. Readers with a taste for sports history will enjoy the fact-based account of the hardscrabble existence of Depression-era barnstorming teams. A worthy addition to this important series.—Richard Luzer, Fair Haven Union High School, VT
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From Booklist

The acclaimed author of several interconnected novels about Chinese American life that take place in various historical eras, adds to his Golden Mountain Chronicles cycle with this story of an itinerant basketball team in the late 1930s. Calvin (Flash) Chin and his friend Barney Young leave San Francisco and go on the road with four other Chinese American players. The Great Depression, Japan’s invasion of China, the Phoney War in Europe, a bounty of ethnic prejudices, and the young men’s own personalities are woven together to form an authentic backdrop against which Yep draws scenes of hard-played ball. The games, played against a range of opponents, from poor western farm boys to the Harlem Globetrotters, are fast-paced and often less than clean. Several of the incidents referred to by minor characters here, such as a mining event in Wyoming, have formed the basis for other novels in this cycle. As always, Yep’s history is impeccable; now he’s written an episode with appeal to basketball fans as well. Grades 6-9. --Francisca Goldsmith

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060275200
• ISBN-13: 978-0060275204
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #787,253 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.