Laurence Yep facts for kids

Laurence Michael Yep (simplified Chinese: 叶祥添; traditional Chinese: 葉祥添; pinyin: Yè Xiángtiān; Jyutping: Jip6 Coeng4 Tim1; born June 14, 1948) is a famous American writer. He is best known for his many children's books. He has won the Newbery Honor award twice for his Golden Mountain series. In 2005, he received the Children's Literature Legacy Award. This award honors writers who have made a big difference in American children's literature throughout their careers.

Early Life and Education

Growing Up in San Francisco

Laurence Yep was born in San Francisco, California, in a neighborhood called Chinatown. His father was born in China and moved to San Francisco as a boy. His mother was a Chinese American born in Ohio. She grew up in West Virginia, where her family ran a Chinese laundry business.

After a tough time during the Great Depression, Yep's family moved. They lived in a neighborhood with many different cultures, but mostly African American families. Yep often helped out in his family's grocery store. He remembers this time taught him "how to observe and listen to people." He says it was great training for becoming a writer.

School Days and Discovering Writing

Yep's older brother, Thomas, named him after Saint Lawrence. Laurence went to a Catholic school in Chinatown for Chinese children. He often felt out of place because he only spoke English, while most other students spoke two languages.

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 with Black and Chinese friends. Even though he loved science, he also became very interested in literature and creative writing.

Yep published his first story in a science fiction magazine when he was just 18. He was still in high school at the time. His English teacher, a Jesuit priest, encouraged him to keep sending his stories to magazines until one was published. This experience made Yep think about writing as a possible career. Before this, he had always wanted to be a chemist.

College and Becoming a Writer

Yep graduated from St. Ignatius College Preparatory in 1966. He decided to become a writer when he started college at Marquette University. There, he became friends with Joanne Ryder, who was an editor for a literary magazine. They later got married.

Joanne introduced him to children's literature. She encouraged him to write a book for kids when she worked at Harper & Row. This led to his first science fiction novel for teens, Sweetwater, which 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 his PhD in English literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Writing Career and Themes

Exploring Identity in Stories

Growing up, Laurence Yep often felt caught between American culture and his Chinese heritage. This feeling is a common theme in his books. Many of his characters feel like outsiders or struggle to fit in. Yep has said he felt this way since he was a child: "I was too American to fit into Chinatown, and too Chinese to fit in anywhere else."

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 and Awards

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 to 1995 in America.

Two books from this series have won Newbery Honor Books awards. These are like runner-up awards for the annual Newbery Medal. They are Dragonwings (published in 1975) and Dragon's Gate (published in 1993).

• Dragonwings also won the Phoenix Award in 1995. This award recognizes the best children's book published twenty years earlier that didn't win a major award at the time. It also won the Carter G. Woodson Book Award in 1976. It has even been made into a play.
• Another book in the Chronicles, Child of the Owl, won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for children's fiction in 1977.
• Yep's collection of short stories, The Rainbow People, was also recognized by the Horn Book in 1989. These stories are based on Chinese folktales and legends.

Yep also wrote two other popular series: Chinatown Mysteries and the Dragon series (from 1982 to 1992). The Dragon series adapts Chinese mythology into four fantasy novels.

Legacy and Recent 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 committee noted that Yep "explores the dilemma of the cultural outsider." They praised his focus on "the complexity and conflict within and across cultures." They specifically mentioned four of his works: Dragonwings, The Rainbow People, The Khan's Daughter, and his autobiography The Lost Garden.

An animated movie based on his book The Tiger's Apprentice was released on February 2, 2024. The movie premiered in Los Angeles on January 27, 2024.

Personal Life

Laurence Yep married the writer Joanne Ryder in 1984. They live in Monterey County, California.

Works

Golden Mountain Chronicles

As of 2011, there are ten books in this series. They cover a fictional history from 1835 to 2011.

• 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 Series

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

Star Fisher Series

• The Star Fisher
• Dream Soul (sequel)

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 Series

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

Later, Gator Series

• 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 (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 Books

• 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
• The Journal of Wong Ming-Chung: A Chinese Miner
• Spring Pearl: The Last Flower
• 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