thief of hearts, laurence yep

Apparently Thief of Hearts is the last book in the Golden Mountain series, and a direct sequel to Child of the Owl, which is the one book I'm the most familiar with. Child of the Owl is set in SF Chinatown in the mid 1960s, when it was more like a small town. In the afterword, Yep says he wanted to talk about all the changes that had happened after the Fair Housing Act, and the lifting of immigration quotas. (Actually I don't think they were lifted all the way, but restrictions were eased.) Different waves of Chinese people came, and then their kids grew up and moved to the suburbs. That's where this starts - Casey, tough streetwise kid of the Child of the Owl book grows up to become a respected psychiatrist, married to a white guy, and they have a kid named Stacy in the suburbs. Stacy is now 13 and we see things through her eyes - she's a bit resentful of her parents' business, and grown a little apart from Tai-Paw, her great-grandmother, who is now living with them. The book introduces a new Chinese girl, Hong Chau, who she's expected to befriend and show around.

Stacy and Hong Chau get off on the wrong foot, and at school, she's accused of theft, and runs away. Stacy, for the first time in her life, gets insulted as a "half-breed", which stirs all kinds of conflicting emotions. The majority of the plot takes Casey, Tai-Paw, and Stacy to SF Chinatown in search of Hong Chau, and it's basically a trip through memory lane of the way things were even as it's obvious that almost nothing is the same. Many of Tai-Paw's friends are dead or moved away, and Stacy learns more about her mother's childhood and the way she grew up, as it becomes obvious that her mother has not told her much.

I don't know what it is about Laurence Yep's writing - it's very simple, but it's not dumbed down, and it's really relatable. His characters are fully realized characters, and you can genuinely empathize with every one, even if they don't act in ways you understand at first. Also...Yep captures class divisions realistically in a way that few young adult authors do - even if Casey's living in the suburbs now, several of her relatives and the characters Stacy encounters are varying degrees of poor and middle class. I guess this short novel is also one about class awakening, maybe? - Stacy in her comfy suburbs, sees where her great-grandmother raises Casey for the first time in SF Chinatown, realizing how little they had, and how hard both she and Casey had to work. There is mention of Tai-Paw's sewing sweatshop work, and how some of the sweatshops have been shut down and moved out of Chinatown. 

(Note: oh wait looks like there's one more book after this. Dragons of Silk.)