Customer Reviews

The Jade Dragon

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A new girl has arrived in Ginny's class. Stephanie looks just like her: Chinese. Ginny is excited that she won't be the only Chinese girl anymore, and she hopes that Stephanie will be her best friend.

Friendship with Stephanie doesn't turn out the way Ginny expects. Stephanie has white parents, and she won't touch Chinese food or clothes. So when Stephanie wants to borrow a hand-carved jade dragon, Ginny doesn't want to say "no." Besides, MaMá probably won't notice if it's gone a few days. Then Ginny learns that getting it back will be harder than she thinks, and that friendship with Stephanie is complicated. Won't anything go the way Ginny expects?

Set in the early 1980s, this is a sweet story that hinges on the tremendous force of cultural collision. What does it mean to carry on one's cultural identity in another country? Immigrant children face even greater questions when thrust into the position of not-quite old country, and not entirely American. Marsden and Loh approach these weighty issues by offering a sensitive, gentle story from a little girl's point of view.

While Ginny's story was set two decades ago, it is highly relevant to children affected by today's immigrant population explosion. Suburban and urban classrooms are more diverse than ever before, and it's important for children to be sensitive to classmates who must face cultural differences. Ginny is a character that these children can relate to, as well as someone who can teach "native" kids to look beyond exotic faces and clothing.

This book is a great pick for individual or classroom reading.

Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer
01/31/2007

This is a story of two Chinese girls -- Stephanie, born in China and adopted by a white American couple, and Ginny, born in the US of Chinese parents who adhere to customs of their homeland. Each is struggling to find her place in a society where she might fit in, where each is so different from classmates and neighbors. American-born Ginny is deeply immersed in the Chinese traditions of her family. She is thrilled to see another girl at school who has the same Asian look as she does. She feels they have a common link which will lead to friendship. Stephanie is cherished by her adoptive family. While she is being raised as an all-American girl, her mother also wants Stephanie to embrace her heritage. Stephanie resists with everything she's got. She resents her Chinese looks. She wants the blond hair and blue eyes of the girls she admires at school. This story is a sensitive look at the question of assimilation, friendship, and acceptance.

I've been reading a lot of children's books this year that have the feel of A Stranger Comes To Town. Or, in the world of kid literature, A New Kid Comes To School. There have been stories where the new child is overweight, where the new kid has been horribly burned, and where the new kid is sexually abused. Imagine my relief, then, when I pick up something like, "The Jade Dragon". In this book, the new kid is just a small girl of Chinese descent. Judging from its slim size (only 160 some pages), I didn't expect much from this book. Imagine my surprise then when I found it to be a surprisingly multifaceted story tucked inside a seemingly simple package. Author Carolyn Marsden has teamed with school teacher Virginia Shin-Mui Loh to tell a tale of second grade morality and what it truly means to be a friend.

When Ginny sees that the new girl in her class, Stephanie, is Chinese-American just like her, she's thrilled beyond words. Finally! The daughter of Chinese immigrants, Ginny has been dying for a kid "just like herself" for a long long time, and here she is! The only problem is that Stephanie doesn't seem to realize that she's the answer to Ginny's prayers. She doesn't seem to like Chinese food or associate with Ginny's culture whatsoever. Then the truth comes out. Stephanie was adopted from China when she was just a baby. Her parents are WASPs and she couldn't care less about her Chinese roots. Tentatively the two begin a friendship, but it isn't until Ginny lends Stephanie her prized jade dragon heirloom that the two begin to become close. Now she has a friend, but also a horrible choice. Ask for the dragon back and lose the one person she wants to stay close to forever and ever, or lose something that's truly a part of her.

What this story does beautifully is set up your average child reader's personal prejudices and then knock them flat, one by one. On the one hand, kids reading this book might get mad at Stephanie for not being interested in Chinese culture. On the other hand, they'll have a hard time denying that Stephanie's room (a kind of fantasy bedroom for sparkle-inclined little girls) is just the kind that they themselves would love to have. The authors are also careful to put in the subtlest of racist insults as well. At one point Ginny is wearing a red cheongsam against her will. She wanted to wear the fluffy Barbie-like dress her father bought her, but her mom insisted she wear a cheongsam instead. When Stephanie's mother sees Ginny, she's charmed. "I wish Stephanie would wear something like that. You look like a little China doll". Later at a sleepover, Stephanie confesses to Ginny that sometimes she wishes she could be white and blond and "American". Ginny knows what she means. Hopefully the book will make it clear to kids that such wishes, innocent though they may be, aren't so hot.

The book is a period piece of sorts, taking place in the year 1983. I suspect that perhaps some details in this book were based on a true story. This could also explain why the book's characters are in the second grade. Actually, the age of the characters was a point of contention for me. Second graders could definitely be read this story, but I doubt that many of them would be able to read it entirely on their own. This would certainly be ideal reading material for fourth graders instead. Then again, how many fourth graders that you know like to read about kids younger than themselves? The age of the characters and the level of written sophistication seem a bit at odds here. It probably would have fared better to make the children in this book fourth graders at the very least.

There is bound to be some comparison of "The Jade Dragon" to the fellow Chinese-American 2006 publication, "The Year of the Dog", by Grace Lin. In both little books (Lin's book weighs in at the even slimmer 134 pages) our heroine is Chinese born American and a there's a new girl in her class of the same racial background. In Lin's story the two become instant best friends and share their lives together. Marsden and Loh's book, in contrast, is a bit more complex. In the end, there's no denying that Marsden and Loh have come up with a remarkably sophisticated story in a misleadingly simple format.

If you're looking for other contemporary tales of American born Chinese kids, definitely seek out "Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything" by Lenore Look as well as the aforementioned "Year of the Dog". All three of these books discuss assimilation, being Chinese-American, and how hard it is to meld two cultures together sometimes. Only "The Jade Dragon" takes it a step farther and introduces the concept of Chinese-American kids born with and without their birth parents' cultural influence. A heady and intelligent book that deserves some attention.

I am so dissapointed in this book. First the good: beautiful storytelling, great characters and setting. good descriptions of the struggles an interracial adoptee may face as well as the stuggles of immigrants who want to assimilate but not lose their culural heritage.

The bad: there are several passages that put adoption in a purely negative light and leave the reader to think "Oh well poor kid, too bad she doesn't have REAL parents" In fact the phrase 'real parents' is used several times.

I loved this book!

Ginny is a 2nd grader born in America to parents that emigrated from China. She's excited when Stephanie comes to school because she looks Chinese. Ginny desperately wants to be friends with Stephanie, and Stephanie's mom wants the same! Ginny soon realizes that Stephanie was adopted from China by white parents. Both girls are uncomfortable with their Chinese heritage and try to shun it in favor of being white like everyone else. Stephanie draws pictures of princesses with long blonde hair and she won't eat a bite of Chinese food.

At a sleepover, the girls exchange secrets. Stephanie says that she wished her parents had left her in China, and Ginny admits that sometimes she wished she weren't Chinese.

The story revolves around a special Jade Dragon figurine that Ginny's dad had carved for her. Ginny tells Stephanie that they were both born in the year of the dragon. Stephanie then asks Ginny to trade for the dragon, which Ginny does and immediately feels remorseful. She wants the dragon back but worries it might end their friendship.

The book is a wonderful tale of friendship, family and culture. I think it would be an excellent book for children that are either immigrants themselves, or first generation Americans. I know I related to it very much, although I'm not Chinese, I immigrated to the United States with my parents when I was 5 years old and I really related to the way Ginny felt. Children with different cultural backgrounds dance on a tight rope - they feel connected to their parents and their culture, but of course they want to fit in with their "American" friends and thus feel the need to shun their heritage. It's a very difficult spot to be in. I could also relate to Ginny's mom, her character rang very true - if you're from another country, you want to hold on to your culture and traditions, sometimes a little too much and Ginny's mom fell into that.

Unlike some of the other reviewers, I didn't think the authors disparaged adoption. Children of adoption, especially foreign adoption, face their own sets of cultural issues and the book reflects that.

I was touched by how deftly the authors presented both girls - Ginny wants to be like Stephanie, and it turns out that Stephanie wants to be like Ginny, in the end they realize that they each have something special. It's told more through Ginny's perspective, she realizes that what makes her different, also makes her special. I think that's the lesson we all try to teach our children.

Ginny is an American-born Chinese girl in the second grade. She wants to be friends with Stephanie, a Chinese-born girl who is adopted by white-American parents. Unfortunately, Stephanie shuns her own Asian identity, and sees herself wanting to be a like stereotypical princess with long-blond hair and Caucasian features. Ginny has to wonder how far she herself will go to try to win the friendship of Stephanie, and not get into the bad side of her parents.

This is where 'The Jade Dragon' of the title comes from: The Dragon is the symbol of Ginny's birth year, and a momento her mother treasures. When Stephanie wants to borrow it, Ginny gives it her in exchange for something that Stephanie allows Ginny to borrow.

This book takes place in the early 80s, and--from what I understand--based on the author's life. As we are more racially conscious in this current era, things might have have been a bit different with Stephanie as we have a bit more faces of ethnicities and nationalities in the media which kids can draw from.

This book doesn't speak against adoption, and it doesn't paint the adoptive parents as 'evil'; but it does address issues that the Asian-American community deals with: Identity, especially with those who are adopted.

The book is geared for younger readers, but the story is very well paced and enjoyable, and technically a good book knows no age boundaries....

I'm an African-American learning Mandarin and interested in Asian culture, so I also appreciated the Chinese characters and their meanings at the back of the book as well as the cultural insights of the story.

"The Jade Dragon" on the surface is a sweet book about little girls from a foreign country trying to find their way in white America. Growing up Japanese-American, I can relate to Ah Mei, of Chinese-born parents, struggling between wanting to fit in and be just like everyone else and yet enjoying her heritage. Stephanie, an adopted child from China, is much more complex in a way that could make adopted child readers and particularly their parents uncomfortable. Stephanie not only pretends to dislike everything Chinese in her wish to fit in with the white culture, but also feels that deep-dark-secret pain of wishing she didn't look so different from her adopted parents..."Why didn't they just leave me in China?"

While I enjoyed this easy read, I found the book just a little outdated as diversity is being stressed these days as a good thing and in most schools, at least urban and suburban, being of a different color and having different traditions is not such a big deal anymore. It does bring up some deep subjects. Young children may mostly focus on how Ah Mei tries so hard to win a friend who looks like her, but this book might raise some very sensitive issues with adopted kids, issues that might best be handled by child and parent reading this book aloud together.

So nice to find a book that kids can relate too about trying to fit in, to find a friend. My adopted Chinese daughter really liked it!

This book is fantastic because it deals with real struggles and the ups and downs that come with childhood. It's obvious that the author works with children and has an excellent memory of what childhood was like. I think the story would help an adopted child feel validated. As an adopted child from a different culture people never know how to label the child. They expect the child to be one culture, yet they are really just as "american" as everyone else. I loved the contrast of two chinese children who have drastically different home lives. They both have reason to see the grass as greener on the other side. The plot is riveting. They should make it into a movie!

Ginny is certain the new girl in her second-grade class will be her best friend - they're both Chinese - but finds her new companion is very different. She hates Chinese food and her straight hair - and her parents aren't even Chinese. How can Ginny be a best friend to somebody who seems so like her, but so different? Carolyn Marsden & Virginia Shin-Mui Loh's The Jade Dragon is a warm story of friendship based on the author's own experiences.