Laurence Yep facts for kids

Laurence Michael Yep (born June 14, 1948) is an American writer. He is famous for his many children's books. He won the Newbery Honor award twice for his exciting Golden Mountain series. In 2005, he also received the Children's Literature Legacy Award. This award celebrates writers who have made a big, lasting impact on children's literature in America.

Early Life and Education

Laurence Yep was born in San Francisco, California. He grew up in the city's Chinatown area. His father, Thomas Yep, was born in China and moved to San Francisco as a boy. His mother, Franche Lee Yep, was a Chinese American born in Ohio. Her family ran a Chinese laundry business in West Virginia.

Yep's family faced tough times during the Great Depression. Later, they moved to a neighborhood with many different cultures, mostly African American families. Laurence grew up helping in his family's grocery store. He says this helped him learn "how to observe and listen to people." This skill was very useful for him as a writer later on.

School Days and Early Writing

Laurence was named by his older brother, Thomas. His brother had just been studying about Saint Lawrence for school. In his early childhood, Yep went to a Catholic school in Chinatown. Most students there spoke two languages, but he only spoke English. This sometimes made him feel different.

When he went to high school at St. Ignatius College Preparatory, he met white American culture for the first time. He had grown up mostly around Black and Chinese kids. He was always interested in science, but in high school, he also found a love for literature and creative writing.

Yep published his first story in a science fiction magazine when he was only 18. He was still in high school at the time! His English teacher, a Jesuit priest, told him to keep sending his story to magazines until it was published. This experience made him think about writing as a possible career. Even though he loved machines and wanted to be a chemist, writing became his path. He graduated from St. Ignatius College Preparatory in 1966.

College and First Book

Yep decided to become a writer when he started college at Marquette University. There, he met Joanne Ryder, who was the editor of a literary magazine. They later got married. Joanne introduced him to children's literature. She also encouraged him to write a book for kids while she worked at Harper & Row.

This led to his first science fiction novel for teens, called Sweetwater. It was published in 1973. After two years at Marquette, Yep moved to UC Santa Cruz. He earned his bachelor's degree there in 1970. Later, he earned a PhD in English literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Writing Career and Themes

Growing up, Laurence Yep often felt like he was caught between American culture and his Chinese heritage. This feeling of not quite fitting in is a common theme in his books. He once said, "I was too American to fit into Chinatown, and too Chinese to fit in anywhere else." Many of his characters also feel like outsiders.

During his writing career, Yep also taught creative writing and Asian-American studies. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara.

Famous Book Series

Yep's most well-known collection of books is the Golden Mountain Chronicles. This series tells the story of the fictional Young family. It follows them from 1849 in China all the way to 1995 in America.

Two books from this series have won the Newbery Honor. This award is given to books that are runners-up for the important annual Newbery Medal. These books are Dragonwings (published in 1975) and Dragon's Gate (published in 1993).

• Dragonwings also won the Phoenix Award in 1995. This award celebrates the best children's book published twenty years earlier that didn't win a major award at the time. It was also adapted into a play.
• Another book in the Chronicles, Child of the Owl, won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award in 1977.

Yep also wrote two other popular series:

• The Chinatown Mysteries
• The Dragon series (1982 to 1992). This series takes Chinese mythology and turns it into four exciting fantasy novels.

Awards and Adaptations

In 2005, children's librarians gave Yep the Children's Literature Legacy Award. This award honors an author or illustrator whose books have made a "substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children." The award committee noted that Yep "explores the dilemma of the cultural outsider." They praised his focus on the complex feelings within and between different cultures. They specifically mentioned Dragonwings, The Rainbow People, The Khan's Daughter, and his autobiography The Lost Garden.

One of his books, The Tiger's Apprentice, is being made into an animated movie! Paramount Pictures announced an animated film adaptation of the book in 2019. It is set to be released in 2024.

Personal Life

Laurence Yep married writer Joanne Ryder in 1984. They live in Pacific Grove, California.

Works

Here are some of Laurence Yep's many books:

Golden Mountain Chronicles

These books tell stories from 1835 to 2011. Here they are listed by the order of the story's time period:

• The Serpent's Children, set in 1849 (1984)
• Mountain Light, 1855 (1985)
• Dragon's Gate, 1867 (1993)
• The Traitor, 1885 (2003)
• Dragonwings, 1903 (1975)
• Dragon Road, 1939 (2007)
• Child of the Owl, 1960 (1977)
• Sea Glass, 1970 (1979)
• Thief of Hearts, 1995 (1995)
• Dragons of Silk, 1835–2011 (2011)

Dragon (fantasy series)

• Dragon of the Lost Sea
• Dragon Steel
• Dragon Cauldron
• Dragon War

Star Fisher series

• The Star Fisher
• Dream Soul (sequel to The Star Fisher)

Chinatown Mysteries

• The Case of the Goblin Pearls
• The Case of the Lion Dance
• The Case of the Firecrackers

City trilogy

• City of Fire
• City of Ice
• City of Death

The Tiger's Apprentice

• The Tiger's Apprentice: Book One
• Tiger's Blood: Book Two
• Tiger Magic: Book Three

Ribbons (group of books)

• Ribbons
• The Cook's Family (sequel to Ribbons)
• The Amah (companion novel)
• Angelfish (sequel to The Cook's Family)

Later, Gator (group of books)

• Later, Gator
• Cockroach Cooties
• Skunk Scout

Mia St. Clair (American Girl series)

• Mia
• Bravo, Mia!

Isabelle series

• Isabelle
• Designs by Isabelle
• To the Stars, Isabelle

A Dragon's Guide series (co-authored with Joanne Ryder)

• A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans
• A Dragon's Guide to Making Your Human Smarter
• A Dragon's Guide to Making Perfect Wishes

Nonfiction

• American Dragons: Twenty-five Asian American Voices (editor)
• The Lost Garden (autobiography)

Picture books

• The Magic Paintbrush
• The Dragon Prince: A Chinese Beauty and the Beast Tale
• The Butterfly Boy
• The Shell Woman and the King: a Chinese folktale
• The Khan's Daughter: a Mongolian folktale
• The Ghost Fox
• The Boy Who Swallowed Snakes
• The Man who Tricked a Ghost
• The City of Dragons

Other books

• Seademons
• Tongues of Jade
• The Rainbow People
• Sweetwater
• Hiroshima: A Novella
• The Earth Dragon Awakes: the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906
• Lady of Ch'iao Kuo: Warrior of the South (part of The Royal Diaries series)
• The Journal of Wong Ming-Chung: A Chinese Miner (part of the My Name Is America series)
• Spring Pearl: The Last Flower (part of the Girls of Many Lands series)
• The Imp that Ate My Homework
• When the Circus Came to Town
• Kind Hearts and Gentle Monsters
• The Mark Twain Murders
• The Tom Sawyer Fires
• Shadow Lord (a Star Trek novel)
• Monster Makers, Inc.

Plays

• The Age of Wonders
• Dragonwings
• Pay the Chinaman (one-act)
• Fairy Bones (one-act)
• HI