New Releases by Laurence Yep

When villagers call Cassia and her brother, Foxfire, "the serpent's children," they mean it as an insult. But to Cassia it is an honor, for legend says that once a serpent sets her mind on something, she never gives up. And in a time when famine, drought, and violence mark her family's life, Cassia has nothing less than survival to fight for. Their father is a revolutionary, determined to free China from invaders. Foxfire, certain he'll find a mountain of gold, flees to a faraway land. Cassia will need all of her strength and wisdom to keep her family together, and to prove that she is truly the serpent's child.

Newbery Honor winner Laurence Yep draws upon his memories of growing up in San Francisco's Chinatown to create an unusual story of sibling rivalry and self-discovery. When Teddy buys an alligator for his younger brother Bobby as a spiteful birthday present, he never imagines how much they will both come to love the beast.

The dragon princess Shimmer and her companions fight a war against the evil Boneless King in order to rescue their friend Thorn and restore the dragons' underwater home.

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

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.

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

"Culled from 69 stories collected in a [1930s] WPA project, [these 20] tales are organized into sections with themes like ''Tricksters'' or ''Virtues and Vices,'' each with a thoughtful introduction placing the individual stories in the context of feelings and background of the original tellers. Yep''s telling is vigorous, often poetic, imbued with earthy humor and realism touched with fatalism. A handsomely designed collection." —K. Notable Children''s Books of 1989 (ALA) The USA Through Children''s Books 1990 (ALA) 1989 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Nonfiction 1990 Fanfare Honor List (The Horn Book) 1989 Children''s Editors'' Choices (BL) Notable 1989 Children''s Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC) Children''s Books of 1989 (Library of Congress) 1989 Children''s Books (NY Public Library) "The Best Books" 1989 (Parents Magazine)

Fifteen-year-old Joan Lee and her family find the adjustment hard when they move from Ohio to West Virginia in the 1920s.

Twelve-year-old Casey is waiting for the day that Barney, her father, hits it big -- ''cause when that horse comes in, he tells her, it''s the penthouse suite. But then hr ends up in the hospital, and Casey is sent to Chinatown to live with her grandmother, Paw-Paw. Now the waiting seems longer than ever. Casey feels lost in Chinatown. She''s not prepared for the Chinese school, the noisy crowds, missing her father. But Paw-Paw tells her about the mother Casey never knew, and about her family''s owl charm and her true Chinese name. And Casey at last begins to understand that this -- Paw-Paw''s Chinatown home, her parents'' home -- is her home,too.

Memoir by the Chinese-American writer who grew up in San Francisco in the 1950s.

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.

Young adult.

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.

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.

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.