Dragonwings
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Dragonwings is an award winning children's novel written by Laurence Yep. The book won the IRA Children's Book Award and two Newbery Honor Awards. The book is used as educational material and has been made into a play.
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[edit] Content
Inspired by the author's experience, it explores the experiences of a young boy growing up between two cultures. In the book, a Chinese boy named Moon Shadow Lee travels to America from China in the early 20th century. He joins his father, Windrider, in San Francisco. His father takes a job as a janitor/repairman, and studies aeronautics in his spare time. Inspired by the Wright brothers, he builds a flying machine called Dragonwings. The father has a short flight in 1909, alhtough he does crash and is injured. Yep spent six years researching Chinatown in the 1900s in order to recreate it in the novel.[1] Part of the story is based on an actual event that took place in 1909 involving a young Chinese flier.[2]
[edit] Awards
- School Library Journal Best Book
- New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year
- Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Honor Book
- International Reading Association Children's Book Award
- Newbery Honor Book
- ISBN: 9780822213260
[edit] Play
Dragonwings was adapted as a stageplay by the author in 1991, commissioned by Berkeley Repertory Theatre. It premiered as a school tour in the San Francisco Bay Area and was directed by Phyllis S.K. Look. The play was published by Dramatists Play Service in 1993.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Cai, Mingshui (2003). Dana L. Fox and Kathy G. Short (eds.). ed. Stories Matter: The Complexity of Cultural Authenticity in Children's Literature. National Council of Teachers of English. pp. 172-178. ISBN 0-8141-4744-5.
- ^ Peterson, Linda Kauffman; Marilyn Leather Solt (1982). Newberry and Caldecott Medal and Honor Books: an annotated bibliography. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co.. pp. 207-208. ISBN 0-8161-8448-8.
[edit] Source
- Harper Collins
- http://www.reading.ccsu.edu/TheDragonLode/DLVol182Sp2000/DLVol182Sp2000%2041-51.pdf
- Leimbach, Dulcie. "For Children." The New York Times. November 6, 1992. Online March 12, 2008.
[edit] Exterior links
Dragonwings play script on Dramatists Play Service
