Dragonwings by Laurence Yep

First published: 1975

Type of work: Historical fiction

Themes: Race and ethnicity, science, family, friendship, and social issues

Time of work: The early twentieth century

Recommended Ages: 13-18

Locale: San Francisco and Oakland; China

Principal Characters:

• Moon Shadow, a preteen boy who leaves China to be with his father in America
• Windrider, his father, a Chinese immigrant to America who is mechanically adept, especially with things that fly
• Uncle Bright Star, leader of their “company” (clan association) in San Francisco’s Chinatown
• Black Dog, his son, a disillusioned ne’er-do-well opium addict who bullies and steals
• Miss Whitlaw, the elderly white landlady of Moon Shadow, not wealthy but sympathetic, open-minded and helpful
• Robin, her equally sympathetic niece, of approximately Moon Shadow’s age

The Story

The action of Dragonwings is told in the first person from the viewpoint of a young Chinese boy named Moon Shadow. It begins when he is eight years old. His family decides to let him migrate to America to join his father, Windrider, who is working in a laundry in San Francisco to support his wife and son. Windrider has not seen his family in more than five years because the laws of the United States excluded the families of poor Chinese from coming to America. Moon Shadow arrives in America and passes through U.S. immigration by assuming the identity of a rich man’s son. He has a happy reunion with his father, whom he best remembers for the wonderfully elaborate kites he made.

Falling in with the rhythm of his father’s life, Moon Shadow moves in with a family association called the Company of the Peach Orchard Vow, a name alluding to a key moment in the Chinese epic, Three Kingdoms. There he works in the association’s laundry and finds favor in the eyes of Uncle Bright Star, the tough and venerable chieftain of their clan, who carves a figurine of Monkey (a folk epic hero) and gives it to the boy. As Moon Shadow becomes better acquainted with his father, Windrider tells him of his belief in reincarnation, specifically that Windrider is the reincarnation of a dragon who was a physician to the Emperor Dragon and that one evening he had been recalled to heal the wounds of the Emperor Dragon, had been briefly rewarded by the ability to fly, as he had wanted, and had been promised rebirth as a dragon if he were to prove himself worthy by passing the tests that would come his way during his lifetime. Moon Shadow is greatly impressed by this.

Windrider’s tests seem to begin immediately when Black Dog, Uncle Bright Star’s son, gets himself into trouble at an opium den: There, some secret society thugs are about to execute him. By a clever ruse, Windrider is able to rescue Black Dog, but Black Dog’s opium addiction, rooted in his disillusionment with himself, leads him to beat and rob Moon Shadow. Uncle Bright Star disowns Black Dog, and Windrider sets out to punish him. In meting out the punishment, however, Windrider kills a secret society man who was threatening Moon Shadow. As a result, Windrider and Moon Shadow have to leave Chinatown and live in exile elsewhere in San Francisco.

Outside Chinatown, Windrider finds work as a handyman for a wealthy white landlord whom he had once helped with his mechanic’s skills during a car breakdown. Father and son settle down to life in a stable amid the tenement housing of Polk Street, located in a poor white quarter. There they make friends with their landlady, Miss Whitlaw, a warmhearted and open-minded elderly woman. She has an equally sympathetic niece of Moon Shadow’s age named Robin, who becomes his companion and an ally against the racist bully boys living in the nearby tenement.

Windrider, who has read about the Wright brothers’ exploits with airplanes, also wishes to fly—an expression of his dragon nature. He corresponds with Orville Wright and builds models and gliders, one of which performs stunningly during a picnic with the Whitlaws. Then, the great San Francisco earthquake rudely shatters the rhythm of their lives. Windrider and Miss Whitlaw team up to rescue the injured, but, threatened by the ensuing fire, they evacuate their families to Golden Gate Park. There, Windrider is reconciled with his company members, also evacuees from Chinatown, which Windrider helps rebuild. Miss Whitlaw’s house is reduced to a shambles, and she seeks domestic employment in Oakland.

Windrider and Moon Shadow move into a smelly barn which serves as their home and hangar. They put all of their spare time and cash into constructing the dream airplane. By September of 1909, the plane is built, christened Dragonwings by the Whitlaws, and ready for a test flight. Then, Black Dog reappears on the scene and robs Windrider of the money he needs for the rental of the barn and for transporting the plane to the hill crest from which it was to have been launched. Windrider and Moon Shadow are in despair, but Miss Whitlaw informs Uncle Bright Star of the dilemma, and the company comes together to haul Dragonwings to its launching spot. There, all Windrider’s friends and clan watch in amazement as he miraculously leaves the earth in his biplane and flies for several minutes before crashing. Windrider is injured but survives the crash. As he recovers, he speaks of realizing the other dream, that of bringing his wife to America and reunifying his family.

Context

Dragonwings is Yep’s best-known book. It received the International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award for 1976, was named a Newbery Honor book for 1976, and was designated as an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book for 1975. It is one of the most distinguished examples of children’s fiction written by and about Asian Americans. Unlike Jade Snow Wong’s Fifth Chinese Daughter (1950), it does not attempt to render Asian Americans exotic or gloss over American society’s flaws.

Yep followed Dragonwings with a novel about a Chinese American girl living in Chinatown entitled Child of the Owl (1977), and it won the Jane Addams Book Award for 1978. Sea Glass (1979) is another novel about a Chinese American youth in a contemporary setting. His The Serpent’s Children (1984), about a brother and a sister, is a novel set in nineteenth-century China; its sequel, Mountain Light (1985), continues their adventures and those of a friend who voyages to America.

Aside from his novels dealing with Asian and Asian American themes and characters, Yep is an accomplished writer of science fiction, in which genre he actually first began publishing. Sweetwater (1973) his first children’s novel, was a work of science fiction. Yep also writes in the genre of children’s fantasy, examples being Dragons of the Lost Sea (1982) and Dragon Steel (1985), as well as in the genre of mysteries, such as The Mark Twain Murders (1982) and The Tom Sawyer Fires (1984). Though Laurence Yep’s total work presents many facets, he will probably be most admired for his imaginative and lively authorship of children’s books about the Chinese American condition.