The Jade Dragon | 
| Authors: Carolyn Marsden, Virginia Shin-mui Loh
Publisher: Candlewick
Category: Book
List Price: $5.99
Buy New: $2.54
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Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 397461
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 0763640611
EAN: 9780763640613
ASIN: 0763640611
Publication Date: September 9, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
bA Chinese-American girl longs for friendship with a classmate adopted from China in this subtle, insightful middle-grade novel./bbrbrGinny is sure the new girl in her second-grade class will be her best friend. After all, Stephanie is Chinese, just like Ginny. But Ginny soon discovers some puzzling things about Stephanie: she doesn't like Chinese food, she hates her straight black hair, and even more surprisingly, her parents are not Chinese. At Ginny's house, MaMa cooks delicious Chinese dishes as the family prepares for their big holiday party and Stephanie spies Ginny's most prized possession #8212; a hand-carved jade dragon #8212; and asks to take it home. Much as Ginny yearns for a best friend, is it worth the risk of losing her special keepsake and angering MaMa? Drawing on Virginia Loh's real life story, the authors poignantly capture Ginny's dilemma as she navigates with difficulty between her culture and her friendship.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Amazing Book! August 30, 2008
This book is fantastic because it deals with real struggles and the ups and downs that come with childhood. It's obvious that the author works with children and has an excellent memory of what childhood was like. I think the story would help an adopted child feel validated. As an adopted child from a different culture people never know how to label the child. They expect the child to be one culture, yet they are really just as "american" as everyone else. I loved the contrast of two chinese children who have drastically different home lives. They both have reason to see the grass as greener on the other side. The plot is riveting. They should make it into a movie!
 Deep waters September 9, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"The Jade Dragon" on the surface is a sweet book about little girls from a foreign country trying to find their way in white America. Growing up Japanese-American, I can relate to Ah Mei, of Chinese-born parents, struggling between wanting to fit in and be just like everyone else and yet enjoying her heritage. Stephanie, an adopted child from China, is much more complex in a way that could make adopted child readers and particularly their parents uncomfortable. Stephanie not only pretends to dislike everything Chinese in her wish to fit in with the white culture, but also feels that deep-dark-secret pain of wishing she didn't look so different from her adopted parents..."Why didn't they just leave me in China?"br /br /While I enjoyed this easy read, I found the book just a little outdated as diversity is being stressed these days as a good thing and in most schools, at least urban and suburban, being of a different color and having different traditions is not such a big deal anymore. It does bring up some deep subjects. Young children may mostly focus on how Ah Mei tries so hard to win a friend who looks like her, but this book might raise some very sensitive issues with adopted kids, issues that might best be handled by child and parent reading this book aloud together.br /
Two Chinese Daughters June 2, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a story of two Chinese girls -- Stephanie, born in China and adopted by a white American couple, and Ginny, born in the US of Chinese parents who adhere to customs of their homeland. Each is struggling to find her place in a society where she might fit in, where each is so different from classmates and neighbors. American-born Ginny is deeply immersed in the Chinese traditions of her family. She is thrilled to see another girl at school who has the same Asian look as she does. She feels they have a common link which will lead to friendship. Stephanie is cherished by her adoptive family. While she is being raised as an all-American girl, her mother also wants Stephanie to embrace her heritage. Stephanie resists with everything she's got. She resents her Chinese looks. She wants the blond hair and blue eyes of the girls she admires at school. This story is a sensitive look at the question of assimilation, friendship, and acceptance.
 Disappointing and upsetting March 12, 2007
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book turned out to be a big disappointment to me because originally I was excited that there was a book about an adopted Chinese child becomming friends with a Chinese American child. It was upsetting to me the way the adoptive child was portrayed. Certain passages in the book were tastelessly done and I feel that any adopted child reading this book will feel terrible about being adopted. The author should take into account the feelings of her readers.
Subtle splendor February 2, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I've been reading a lot of children's books this year that have the feel of A Stranger Comes To Town. Or, in the world of kid literature, A New Kid Comes To School. There have been stories where the new child is overweight, where the new kid has been horribly burned, and where the new kid is sexually abused. Imagine my relief, then, when I pick up something like, "The Jade Dragon". In this book, the new kid is just a small girl of Chinese descent. Judging from its slim size (only 160 some pages), I didn't expect much from this book. Imagine my surprise then when I found it to be a surprisingly multifaceted story tucked inside a seemingly simple package. Author Carolyn Marsden has teamed with school teacher Virginia Shin-Mui Loh to tell a tale of second grade morality and what it truly means to be a friend.br /br /When Ginny sees that the new girl in her class, Stephanie, is Chinese-American just like her, she's thrilled beyond words. Finally! The daughter of Chinese immigrants, Ginny has been dying for a kid "just like herself" for a long long time, and here she is! The only problem is that Stephanie doesn't seem to realize that she's the answer to Ginny's prayers. She doesn't seem to like Chinese food or associate with Ginny's culture whatsoever. Then the truth comes out. Stephanie was adopted from China when she was just a baby. Her parents are WASPs and she couldn't care less about her Chinese roots. Tentatively the two begin a friendship, but it isn't until Ginny lends Stephanie her prized jade dragon heirloom that the two begin to become close. Now she has a friend, but also a horrible choice. Ask for the dragon back and lose the one person she wants to stay close to forever and ever, or lose something that's truly a part of her.br /br /What this story does beautifully is set up your average child reader's personal prejudices and then knock them flat, one by one. On the one hand, kids reading this book might get mad at Stephanie for not being interested in Chinese culture. On the other hand, they'll have a hard time denying that Stephanie's room (a kind of fantasy bedroom for sparkle-inclined little girls) is just the kind that they themselves would love to have. The authors are also careful to put in the subtlest of racist insults as well. At one point Ginny is wearing a red cheongsam against her will. She wanted to wear the fluffy Barbie-like dress her father bought her, but her mom insisted she wear a cheongsam instead. When Stephanie's mother sees Ginny, she's charmed. "I wish Stephanie would wear something like that. You look like a little China doll". Later at a sleepover, Stephanie confesses to Ginny that sometimes she wishes she could be white and blond and "American". Ginny knows what she means. Hopefully the book will make it clear to kids that such wishes, innocent though they may be, aren't so hot.br /br /The book is a period piece of sorts, taking place in the year 1983. I suspect that perhaps some details in this book were based on a true story. This could also explain why the book's characters are in the second grade. Actually, the age of the characters was a point of contention for me. Second graders could definitely be read this story, but I doubt that many of them would be able to read it entirely on their own. This would certainly be ideal reading material for fourth graders instead. Then again, how many fourth graders that you know like to read about kids younger than themselves? The age of the characters and the level of written sophistication seem a bit at odds here. It probably would have fared better to make the children in this book fourth graders at the very least.br /br /There is bound to be some comparison of "The Jade Dragon" to the fellow Chinese-American 2006 publication, "The Year of the Dog", by Grace Lin. In both little books (Lin's book weighs in at the even slimmer 134 pages) our heroine is Chinese born American and a there's a new girl in her class of the same racial background. In Lin's story the two become instant best friends and share their lives together. Marsden and Loh's book, in contrast, is a bit more complex. In the end, there's no denying that Marsden and Loh have come up with a remarkably sophisticated story in a misleadingly simple format. br /br /If you're looking for other contemporary tales of American born Chinese kids, definitely seek out "Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything" by Lenore Look as well as the aforementioned "Year of the Dog". All three of these books discuss assimilation, being Chinese-American, and how hard it is to meld two cultures together sometimes. Only "The Jade Dragon" takes it a step farther and introduces the concept of Chinese-American kids born with and without their birth parents' cultural influence. A heady and intelligent book that deserves some attention.br /
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