Customer Reviews

The Journal of Wong Ming-Chung: A Chinese Miner, California, 1852 (My Name is America)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I loved this book. It allows the reader to live through the gold rush. It would be especially appropiate for fourth graders studying California history and Chinese immigration. I highly recommend it.

Young Bright Intelligance (who's usually called Runt because of his small size) and his family live in grueling poverty in rural China in 1851. Hoping to make a name for himself and earn a fortune, Runt's uncle sets out for the gold fields of California. Soon, Runt joins him. He is horrified by barely endurable conditions on the ocean voyage and by the cruelty with which the American miners treat the Chinese. And he soon learns that mining is mostly working long, hard hours for just a small ammount of gold. And the predjudice of the Americans soon escalates into violence. Still, through it all, Runt holds on to his hope of discovering gold and earning a better life for his family. Told through Runt's diary, this book showed what a young immigrant miner in California during the gold rush might have seen, encountered, thought, and felt. An excellant addition to the My Name is America series.

I read this book aloud to my 3rd- and 4th-grade kids who are studying California history. We had previously read that there was a big migration of Chinese to the gold fields before other immigrants arrived, simply because the Chinese were geographically closer than anyone else. I had also read that the Chinese were treated very poorly by the American miners, sometimes lynched simply for being Chinese.

I was happy to see that this book very accurately represents what little history I know of the Chinese in America during the Gold Rush, but it does so always with a hopeful slant. The miners are persecuted, and young readers feel the fear, but no one gets killed and the Chinese use their wits to outsmart the bullies, even though the law is against the Chinese. Few people are finding gold, and again the reader feels the hopelessness of gold mining, but the Chinese find clever ways to get gold that others have left behind.

Yep is a sophisticated author, not just telling a story, but adding thought-provoking details. For example, some of his characters of different ethnicities are trying to think of what they have in common, and they realize that they are all dreamers--not just the sort of dreamers who come up with ideas they don't act on, but the sort of dreamers who are willing to take risks to make their dreams come true.

This book has strong themes of the value of education, hard work, and loyalty.

The end of the book has real photos of Chinese workers during the California Gold Rush.

My kids and I both really enjoyed this book and have recommended it to other home-schoolers.

Wong is a twelve-year-old living in China with his parents, his older brother, and his uncle in 1852. Life is sometimes very hard for the Chinese. They have to pay high taxes in order to fund their armies, who always seem to be fighting a war with someone. If their crops don't do well, they don't eat well. Some people of Wong's clan have left to go to America. There they have heard there is a golden mountain in a place called California, and they can get rich by going there and picking gold nuggets off of the ground. Indeed, the sons of those who have left to become miners do have more money and are treated better, especially by the teachers at school. Wong's uncle decides to go to California with two other men from the clan. Wong's brother wants to go as well, but their uncle says no and promises to send for him once he reaches California.

Months later, Wong's family finally gets the news that his uncle has reached California, although the two men he traveled with from the clan died on the voyage there. He wants Wong's brother to join him. Instead, Wong's parents send him.

The trip to California is difficult, crammed onto a ship with many other people and treated like animals. Once Wong reaches California he finds out that there was, in fact, a gold rush, but there is no mountain of gold and now that so many people have gone to California to find their fortunes, most of the gold is gone. The life of a gold miner is a very hard one, especially when Wong and his uncle are trying to send every penny they can home to their family in China. Making things worse are the American miners who are angry that so many foreigners have come to take the gold they think is rightfully theirs.

It was interesting to read that the gold rush affected so many different people. I thought those who went to mine were just within this country, but in this book there were people from all different countries, all coming to California to try to get rich. I liked the relationship that developed between Wong and his uncle as they worked together.

This book is about a little boy who wrote in a journal about his life. He started off in China with all his family. Then his uncle left to went to America to become rich and also to make his family rich because they thought he was bad luck. His uncle sends for him to America, so he goes and starts to mine. They don't find much until they start to find gold on the floors of old shacks that were abandoned by miners that thought that the golddust that they left on the floor wasn't very important. Then the gold started to become scarce and the golddust was actually worth something when there was alot of it.
This book was very good because it tells how a boy survived in the time where almost everything was a little bit harder. The words in this book are very well understandable. The book is simple and it explains everything very plainy that helps the reader to understand. The words in the book help the reader to know what the author is trying to tell them.
My favorite part in the book was when uncle and runt go to the old shacks and find the golddust. I like this part because it shows when someone actually finds some kind of gold. How they find the gold is very interesting. How the sun sparkles off the cabin floor and makes the gold shine. This lights up the whole cabin and blinds uncle and runt. They become rich and send alot of money home.

I think this is a wonderful book because it had alot of excellent description and deep meaning. Wong Ming-Chung traveled from China all the way to the Golden Mountain to find gold with his uncle. It is a story about survival of a young boy as he travels to America and the difficulties he encounters. It is a very exciting book with a surprising ending.

The Journal of Wong Min-Chung is a very good historical fiction book!!!Dispite what someone else said in a reveiw it tells alot of chinese as much as I need to know for now anyways!!!Runt is a young boy from Tiger Rock,China yup and well they hear talk of the golden mountain(The gold feilds in Cali),and they think it sounds so great like you'll make millions since the guest(That's what those relatives of those who dig gold are called)are very rich from there relatives working on the mountain!!!So Runts stubborn Uncle Stone with much fighting with Runts father which is also Uncle Stones brother he is on his way to America claiming to the clan he's bringing home melon sized nuggets!!! Of course that doesn't happen...But Runt's brother Blessing was supposed to be sent to the golden mountain to be with his Uncle,but there parents didn't want him to go so they forced Runt to go instead,and Run suddenly thought his parents hated him for his own parents were willing to risk Runt's life over Blessing's!!!There is so much more to this wonderfully crafted book on the American gold rush,if you want to learn about the gold rush you should read this book!!!

I originally bought this book for my son on the same time and date as two others in the series. I got the first two within 3-4 days without any problem. This last one however, I didn't get for one month!! When I finally contacted this seller, they said they had no record of the transaction or my request from Amazon. I forwarded them the email with all of the info and they immediately shipped the book. I got it a few days later and my son was very happy as he needed it for a book report. Once they got involved, everything was great, but to have to wait for nearly a month was extremely annoying. I'm not sure who's responsible for the mix up, but that's why I'm not rating them higher.

This book is the journal of the boy, Ming-Chung, who lives in southern China. In English, his name means Bright Intelligence, although many people call him Runt. His uncle is full of bad luck, and his brother, Blessing, and Ming-Chung are scholars. His uncle goes to the gold rush to find gold. He writes back giving gold and wanting Blessing. Instead, Ming-Chung goes. Both need good luck and a good group to find gold, if they survive the stay.

This journal shows how his life was coming to California. I liked this book a lot. It showed his feelings in times that no one would know of. This journal also shows how events and laws change how they have to live. I would give it two thumbs up.

I would recommend this book to anyone. Although this book might shed a few tears, it is a book worth reading.

The Journal of Wong Ming Chung


This book is about a young miner, named Wong Ming Chung, but everyone calls him Runt. His Uncle travels to "The Golden Mountain," witch is what they call me California. Uncle is the head of the family, so what he says goes. When he's in Cali, uncle sends for Runt's brother, Blessing.

The parents decide that Blessing is too valuable to go and to California and possibly die, so they sent Runt. Uncle isn't exactly that pleased, be he lets it go. This part of the story made me really sad because Runt's friend Sunny dies on the journey. When in California, Runt and Uncle experience success, failure, and lots of snow, in witch the whole Chinese mining camp indulges in a huge snow-ball fight. All in all, this whole concept of how badly the miners treated the Chinese was very sad, although the way that the money made in mining was sent back to the family in China made me joyful. Over all, I loved the book.
San Anselmo, CA