Laurence Yep

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Laurence Yep bigraphy, stories - American children's writer

Laurence Yep : biography

June 14, 1948 –

Laurence Michael Yep ( born June 14, 1948) is a prolific Chinese-American writer, best known for children’s books. In 2005 he received the biennial Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for his career contribution to American children’s literature.

Writer

Yep’s most notable work is the Golden Mountain Chronicles, documenting the fictional Young family from 1849 in China to 1995 in America. Two of the series are Newbery Honor Books, or runners-up for the annual Newbery Medal: Dragonwings (Harper & Row, 1975) and Dragon’s Gate (HarperCollins, 1993). Dragonwings won the Phoenix Award from the Children’s Literature Association in 1995, recognizing the best children’s book published twenty years earlier that did not win a major award. It has been adapted as a play under its original title. Another of the Chronicles, Child of the Owl won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for children’s fiction in 1977. (The Rainbow People, Yep’s collection of short stories based on Chinese folktales and legends, was a Horn Book runner-up in 1989.)

Yep wrote two other notable series, Chinatown Mysteries and Dragon (1982 to 1992). The latter is an adaptation of Chinese mythology as four fantasy novels.

One of Yep’s recurring topics is people who feel alone and feel they do not belong in their surroundings, which are common feelings among young readers. Many of his characters, through their journeys, are able to find who they are and where they belong.

In 2005 the professional children’s librarians awarded Yep the biennial Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, which recognizes a living author or illustrator whose books, published in the United States, have made "a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children". The committee noted that "Yep explores the dilemma of the cultural outsider" with "attention to the complexity and conflict within and across cultures" and it cited four works in particular: Dragonwings, The Rainbow People, The Khan’s Daughter, and the autobiographical The Lost Garden.

A live-action/CGI TV movie of The Tiger’s Apprentice, adapted by Finding Neverland writer David Magee, is currently being developed by Cartoon Network.

Works

Golden Mountain Chronicles

As of 2011 there are ten published chronicles spanning 1835 to the present. Here they are ordered by the fictional history and the year of the narrative follows the title; none of the titles includes a date.

  1. The Serpent’s Children, set in 1849 (1984)
  2. Mountain Light, 1855 (1985)
  3. Dragon’s Gate, 1867 (1993)
  4. The Traitor, 1885 (2003)
  5. Dragonwings, 1903 (1975)
  6. Dragon Road, 1939 (2007); originally The Red Warrior
  7. Child of the Owl, 1960 (1977)
  8. Sea Glass, 1970 (1979)
  9. Thief of Hearts, 1995 (1995)
  10. Dragons of Silk, 1835-2011 (2011)
Dragon (fantasy series)
  1. Dragon of the Lost Sea
  2. Dragon Steel
  3. Dragon Cauldron
  4. Dragon War
Chinatown Mysteries
  1. The Case of the Goblin Pearls
  2. The Case of the Lion Dance
  3. The Case of the Firecrackers
City trilogy
  1. City of Fire
  2. City of Ice
  3. City of Death
The Tiger’s Apprentice
  1. The Tiger’s Apprentice: Book One
  2. Tiger’s Blood: Book Two
  3. Tiger Magic: Book Three
Ribbons (untitled group of books)
  1. Ribbons
  2. The Cook’s Family
  3. The Amah
  4. Angelfish
Later, Gator (untitled group of books)
  1. Later, Gator
  2. Cockroach Cooties
  3. Skunk Scout