The story of a young Chinese girl who arrives in North America only to discover that her father has died building the railway.This powerful, unforgettable and multi-award-winning tale is based on the lives of the Chinese who settled on the west coast of North America in the early 1900s.Left behind in China by her father, who has gone to North America to find work, Choon-yi has made her living by selling her paintings in the market. When her father writes on...

For more than thirty years, Paul Yee has written about his Chinese-Canadian heritage in award-winning books for young readers as well as adult non-fiction. Here, in his first work of fiction for adults, he takes us on a harrowing journey into a milestone event of Canadian history: the use of Chinese coolies to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia in hazardous conditions.After the CPR is built in 1885, Yang Hok, a former coolie, treks along the railway to retu...

Winner of the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize, the IODE Violet Downey Book Award and the IODE National Chapter AwardDrawing on the real background of the Chinese role in the gold rush, the building of the railway and the settling of the west coast in the nineteenth century, noted historian and children’s author Paul Yee has created eight original stories that combine the rough-and-tumble adventure of frontier life with the rich folk traditions that thes...

Ray Liu knows he should be happy. He lives in a big suburban house with all the latest electronic gadgets, and even finds plenty of time to indulge in his love of gaming. He needs the escape. It's tough getting grades that will please his army veteran father, when speaking English is still a struggle. And he can't quite connect with his peers at high school -- Chinese immigrants like himself but who seem to have adjusted to North American life more easily. Then comes the fateful day when h...

Jason is an outsider.A recent immigrant from China, Jason lives in a close-minded town with his mother and younger brother. Falling in with the wrong crowd, trying to fit in, Jason takes chances and ends up in trouble with the police. Holding on to his friendship with an Indigenous boy, also an outsider, Jason finds he needs to fight to belong and to find a new home.This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for teen readers who are buildin...

These ten original ghost stories dramatize the history of Chinese immigration to North America -- from the poor village men who first came searching for gold in the late 1850s to the new immigrants who arrived from Hong Kong in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. These stories describe the resilience and struggle of people trying to make new lives for themselves in a strange land. But these are also ghost stories, a popular narrative form in China. Though men and women seek their fortune ...

The incredible sacrifices made by Chinese workers building the transcontinental railway are revealed in this powerful novel.Heen's father and grandfather have brought their family in China to the brink of ruin with their gambling habits. To solve their money troubles, Heen and his father come to Canada to build the railway — a decision plagued by disaster.The living conditions provided for workers are wretched and work on the railway is excruciatin...

In these eleven original stories, characters bravely face the challenges of settling into a new life.In this wonderful new short story anthology, eleven of Canada's top children's authors contribute stories of immigration, displacement and change, exploring the frustration and uncertainty those changes can bring. Told in first-person narratives, this collection features a diverse cast of boys and girls, each one living at a different point in Canada's vast...

Fourteen-year-old Bing-wing Chan must conquer his fear of ghosts as his father’'s gambling debts force him to dig for human bones in a graveyard and then to work as a houseboy in a haunted house. Set in Vancouver's Chinatown, The Bone Collector's Son is a moving study of racism and the struggle of Chinese immigrants at the turn of the century.

Shu-Li's family moved to Canada two years ago. They now run a Chinese deli in Vancouver's Commerical Drive area. Her classmate Tamara recently moved into the neighbourhood. The two girls become good friends, but an ugly rumour threatens their relationship.

What Happened This Summer takes us into the turbulent lives of Chinese-Canadian teenagers. We are drawn into their often agonizing struggles to balance their parents' traditional expectations against the pull of today's urban youth cuture. Author Paul Yee gives us a vivid snapshot of the tensions which arise from the immigration experience as he explores the profound impact of uprootedness upon the lives of young people.

In this novel set in San Francisco`s Chinatown before and after 1906, young Jackson Leong has to not only cope with the ghost of his brother who died in the earthquake, but also the mysterious ghost of a young woman who is haunting the family nickelodeon. A masterpiece of historical fiction that will take the reader on a roller coaster journey into the past.