Noted author Laurence Yep has often drawn on the Chinese American immigration experience in his works of historical fiction for children. Here Yep collaborates with his niece, an assistant professor of Asian American studies and sociology, to illuminate the Angel Island experience through family history. The fictional story is based on the experiences of Laurence Yep’s father and grandfather on their journeys from China to the United States. Angel Island in San Francisco was considered the Ellis Island of the West and served as a processing and detention center for immigrants from 1910 to 1940. Anti-Chinese immigration laws required new and returning Chinese to pass an intense examination to confirm their identity before entering the country. Ten-year-old Gim Lew Yep, who is leaving his village in China for the first time to live and work with his father in San Francisco, is terrified of failing the interrogation that awaits him at Angel Island. His fear is compounded by his desperate desire to prove himself to his father. Tension escalates with each short chapter as the emotional and physical journey unfolds. A descriptive author’s note at the beginning and end of the book, plus photographs and a bibliography, will have greater appeal to adult readers, but the heart of this volume is an engaging historical work for children. (Ages 9–12)

Did you want to go to America?
Pop: Sure. I didn't have a choice. My father said I had to go. So I went.

Were you sad when you left your village?
Pop: Maybe a little . . . well, maybe a lot.

Ten-year-old Gim Lew Yep knows that he must leave his home in China and travel to America with the father who is a stranger to him. Gim Lew doesn't want to leave behind everything that he's ever known. But he is even more scared of disappointing his father. He uses his left hand, rather than the "correct" right hand; he stutters; and most of all, he worries about not passing the strict immigration test administered at Angel Island.

The Dragon's Child is a touching portrait of a father and son and their unforgettable journey from China to the land of the Golden Mountain. It is based on actual conversations between two-time Newbery Honor author Laurence Yep and his father and on research on his family's immigration history by his niece, Dr. Kathleen S. Yep.