Best Selling Books by Laurence Yep

All Joan Lee and her younger siblings, Bobby and Emily, want for Christmas in 1927 is to be allowed to celebrate it. Joan longs to be just like everyone else, even if she is Chinese, but this will be the Lees'' first Christmas in West Virginia! Miss Lucy, their landlady and friend, innocently invites the family to celebrate Christmas with her. Joan''s parents resist at first, but that changes when Papa realizes he can turn it to his advantage. The children can have Christmas, but only if they are good--all the time. Joan, Bobby, and Emily quickly become aware of how hard this will be as each day brings new temptations of sledding, playing in the snow, and spending time with friends. Joan is particularly intrigued by the glamorous Victoria Barrington and her father, who have a mysterious past and are so unlike her own family. But a crisis forces Joan to gain a new understanding of her parents and her heritage, and she must look to her past in order to help her family before it''s too late. Continuing the story of the Lees begun in The Star Fisher, winner of the Christopher Award and the West Virginia Literary Award, Dream Soul is a touching story of love, loyalty, and the importance of family. Books for the Teen Age 2001 (NYPL)

Standing beside his father, a man he hardly knew, at Angel Island in front of the immigration officials, ten-year-old Gim Lew fears the worst when the time comes for his father to answer very important questions that will decide their fates, in a dramatic tale about the process of Chinese American immigration.

Teddy''s idea of a good vacation is a triple-feature at the movie theater. So when his uncle invites him to go camping, he is more than a little reluctant. To make matters worse, his know-it-all little brother, Bobby, is coming, too. Teddy practices his camping skills in his Chinatown apartment and watches Wilderness Scout for tips, but nothing can prepare him for his meeting with Mother Nature. Soon Teddy, Bobby, and Uncle Curtis find themselves in the woods, sleeping on rocks, and battling raccoons, mosquitoes, and poison oak. Through it all, Teddy is determined to prove he is just as smart as his little brother. But the worst is yet to come. A hike leaves them lost in the woods-and is that a skunk coming down the path?

Isabelle, who attends a performing arts school in Washington, D.C., with her older sister, Jade, has a passion for ballet dancing but lacks self-confidence.

A boy with a face so sad that nobody wants to look at him runs away with a caravan of giants to the city of dragons, where his sorrowful face is finally appreciated.

As her parents'' arguments become more frequent, Robin looks forward to the visits that she and her grandmother make to Chinatown, where they pretend to be an elderly cook''s family, giving Robin new insights into her Chinese heritage.

In this latest chapter of the acclaimed series by the two-time Newbery Honor author, tensions between the American miners and their Chinese rivals are high in a small mining town. But two young outcasts forge an unexpected friendship that saves them from the town''s hatred.

Sung, a brave man who is not afraid of ghosts, meets one on a dark road and tricks it into revealing its secret weakness.

Charley Sabini, who thinks with his head, meets Chris Pomeroy, who thinks with her feelings, and the result is a friendship which is a surprise to both of them.

In the summer of 1864, a teen-age boy meets reporter Mark Twain in San Francisco after a murder, and agrees to help him get the story.

An evocative retelling of a 17th century Chinese fable by Yep and a wonderful reminder that good stories are ageless, linking our children with those of past generations and those not yet born.

While his father is away, Little Lee fights to save his mother''s soul from an evil fox spirit.

From the time a giant squirrel curses Farmer Johnson''s best hunting dog, things are never the same around the farm, and hunting little animals ceases to be a sport.

An honest young boy tries to get rid of an ever-increasing number of snakes that have come with the bowlful of silver coins he found.

The fifteen-year-old narrator relates how, with his help, cub reporter, Mark Twain, and fire fighter, Tom Sawyer, uncover the plot of a deranged Southern arsonist in San Francisco during the Civil War.