From School Library Journal
Grade 4-6-Second Sister Yinglan has clung to her Chinese heritage after the musically talented Yang family's move from China to Seattle. Yang the Youngest, Yingtao, relates what happens when he and Third Sister decide that their sibling needs help making friends in America. He gets an inspiration after watching a movie version of Much Ado About Nothing, in which Beatrice and Benedick fall in love after each overhears gossip that one likes the other. Yingtao, Third Sister, and her friend Kim decide to play matchmaker between Yinglan and Paul Eng, a baseball player of Chinese ancestry. Yingtao has ulterior motives?he hopes Paul will give him pointers on improving his own game. The plot thickens when Kim's older brother Jason overhears part of the plans and thinks Yinglan is enamored of him. The climax occurs at a picnic where all three families come together. Namioka offers comparisons between life here and in China and insights into the meaning of heritage and ethnicity. However, the humor that shone forth in earlier titles about the Yang family seems contrived and flat here, and the plot becomes increasingly silly. The story takes time to get into and ultimately disappoints.
Diane S. Marton, Arlington County Library, VACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Gr. 4^-6. Like
Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear (1992) and
Yang the Third and His Impossible Family (1995), this story of a newly arrived Chinese American family in Seattle is frank and funny regarding the difficulty of living in two worlds. This time the focus is on the oldest sister in the family, Yinglan Yang, who misses China and doesn't want to fit in here. She longs for her friends back home, and she despises a boy who denies his Chinese heritage (he's a "banana," yellow outside, white inside). Told by the youngest kid in the family, the story has a heavily contrived plot, with convoluted schemes to get Yinglan to fall in love and settle down. Readers won't care about what happens with the silly tricks. Especially for those who know the first two books, the interest here is in the immigrant experience: you can't deny your heritage, but what does that mean?
Hazel Rochman
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
