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Dream Soul
Will the Lees celebrate Christmas?Everyone else in their small town in West Virginia is getting ready for Christmas, but Joan's parents won't let her and her siblings celebrate: Christmas is not Chinese. Then their father finally promises they can go to a neighbor's Christmas party, but only if none of them misbehaves at all in the weeks before the holiday. If only he was as generous as Joan's friend Victoria's father!
Continuing the story of the Lees begun in The Star Fisher, Dream Soul is a touching story of love, loyalty, and the importance of family.
Continuing the story of the Lees begun in The Star Fisher, Dream Soul is a touching story of love, loyalty, and the importance of family.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
80 people want to read
About the author
Laurence Yep
120 books295 followersBorn June 14, 1948 in San Francisco, California, Yep was the son of Thomas Gim Yep and Franche Lee Yep. Franche Lee, her family's youngest child, was born in Ohio and raised in West Virginia where her family owned a Chinese laundry. Yep's father, Thomas, was born in China and came to America at the age of ten where he lived, not in Chinatown, but with an Irish friend in a white neighborhood. After troubling times during the Depression, he was able to open a grocery store in an African-American neighborhood. Growing up in San Francisco, Yep felt alienated. He was in his own words his neighborhood's "all-purpose Asian" and did not feel he had a culture of his own. Joanne Ryder, a children's book author, and Yep met and became friends during college while she was his editor. They later married and now live in San Francisco.
Although not living in Chinatown, Yep commuted to a parochial bilingual school there. Other students at the school, according to Yep, labeled him a "dumbbell Chinese" because he spoke only English. During high school he faced the white American culture for the first time. However, it was while attending high school that he started writing for a science fiction magazine, being paid one cent a word for his efforts. After two years at Marquette University, Yep transferred to the University of California at Santa Cruz where he graduated in 1970 with a B.A. He continued on to earn a Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1975. Today as well as writing, he has taught writing and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and Santa Barbara.
Although not living in Chinatown, Yep commuted to a parochial bilingual school there. Other students at the school, according to Yep, labeled him a "dumbbell Chinese" because he spoke only English. During high school he faced the white American culture for the first time. However, it was while attending high school that he started writing for a science fiction magazine, being paid one cent a word for his efforts. After two years at Marquette University, Yep transferred to the University of California at Santa Cruz where he graduated in 1970 with a B.A. He continued on to earn a Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1975. Today as well as writing, he has taught writing and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and Santa Barbara.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 5, 2026
Read as a bargain with a 3rd grader. Quick easy read about a Chinese family learning American customs in the 1920's.
November 24, 2020
This was such a good book! It can be a bit confusing as the characters switch between speaking Chinese and English (English is formatted in Italics in my copy). It is set in West Virginia in 1927 and revolves around a family of Chinese immigrants whose children really want to celebrate the American Christmas. The author also includes bits of the family's life/history/mythology from China throughout the book and there tends to be a juxtaposition to what the main character feels is the "American" way. Dream Soul would probably be a little harder as a read aloud due to the switching between languages throughout the book, but I think it could fit as a nice book choice for an older elementary/middle school child to read for themselves.
September 5, 2021
As you can probably tell, historical fiction is always something I'm interesting in reading. This book didn't disappoint. Would read it again, for sure. :)
December 23, 2020
I have this book right now its the best THANK U LAURENCENCE YEP!
December 24, 2016
This review also appears on my blog, Read-at-Home Mom.
Fifteen-year-old Joan Lee, her brother Bobby, and her sister Emily, are the children of Chinese immigrants living in 1927 West Virginia. Because they are not Christian, their parents have never allowed them to celebrate Christmas, a fact which makes the younger Lee children feel hopelessly left out every December. When the three children are invited to celebrate with a lonely neighbor who has no family of her own, they plead with their parents to allow them to join the festivities, but they are told they can only participate if their behavior is absolutely perfect. This is especially difficult for Emily, who is the troublemaker of the family, and for Joan, whose new classmate Victoria's permissive father seems so much more appealing than her own. It will take a health scare - and a supernatural experience involving her own father's soul - to help Joan realize how much her parents really do love her and her siblings.
This book has very little to do with major historical events of the 1920s, but I wanted read it because I've never read anything by Laurence Yep. I'm so glad I did, because his writing is truly delightful, and I feel that I have discovered a new favorite author. Through a series of memorable scenes from everyday life, this family story explores themes of alienation and isolation, obedience and kindness, fear and suspicion, envy and admiration. Relationships drive the story and help readers to understand the beauty and importance of familial love in a very natural and believable way. Though this type of story - especially when Christmas is involved - often comes across as cheesy and didactic, this one does not. The Lees are very real people, and even the parents who make things feel so difficult for their children, come across as sympathetic.
I didn't realize this when I selected it, but Dream Soul is actually a sequel to a 1991 novel called Star Fisher. Though I normally like to read books in publication order, I had no problem jumping right into Dream Soul without the benefit of reading the first book, so it seems that it is not necessary to read them in order. Though the main character is a teenager, she seems much younger, so readers as young as 8 or 9 would probably have no difficult relating to her or enjoying the book. In fact, Dream Soul is an ideal read-alike for the American Girl series, of which Laurence Yep has actually written a few titles. I wouldn't say this is a true historical fiction novel that teaches readers about the 1920s as a whole, but it is a lovely slice of life novel that explores a taste of the immigrant experience which young readers who like family stories will definitely enjoy.
Fifteen-year-old Joan Lee, her brother Bobby, and her sister Emily, are the children of Chinese immigrants living in 1927 West Virginia. Because they are not Christian, their parents have never allowed them to celebrate Christmas, a fact which makes the younger Lee children feel hopelessly left out every December. When the three children are invited to celebrate with a lonely neighbor who has no family of her own, they plead with their parents to allow them to join the festivities, but they are told they can only participate if their behavior is absolutely perfect. This is especially difficult for Emily, who is the troublemaker of the family, and for Joan, whose new classmate Victoria's permissive father seems so much more appealing than her own. It will take a health scare - and a supernatural experience involving her own father's soul - to help Joan realize how much her parents really do love her and her siblings.
This book has very little to do with major historical events of the 1920s, but I wanted read it because I've never read anything by Laurence Yep. I'm so glad I did, because his writing is truly delightful, and I feel that I have discovered a new favorite author. Through a series of memorable scenes from everyday life, this family story explores themes of alienation and isolation, obedience and kindness, fear and suspicion, envy and admiration. Relationships drive the story and help readers to understand the beauty and importance of familial love in a very natural and believable way. Though this type of story - especially when Christmas is involved - often comes across as cheesy and didactic, this one does not. The Lees are very real people, and even the parents who make things feel so difficult for their children, come across as sympathetic.
I didn't realize this when I selected it, but Dream Soul is actually a sequel to a 1991 novel called Star Fisher. Though I normally like to read books in publication order, I had no problem jumping right into Dream Soul without the benefit of reading the first book, so it seems that it is not necessary to read them in order. Though the main character is a teenager, she seems much younger, so readers as young as 8 or 9 would probably have no difficult relating to her or enjoying the book. In fact, Dream Soul is an ideal read-alike for the American Girl series, of which Laurence Yep has actually written a few titles. I wouldn't say this is a true historical fiction novel that teaches readers about the 1920s as a whole, but it is a lovely slice of life novel that explores a taste of the immigrant experience which young readers who like family stories will definitely enjoy.
October 8, 2009
THIS IS LITERALLY MY FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME! If you are Asian American, this is a must-read. It depicts all of the feeling culturally lost, the "why-am-I-different?", that every Asian-American feels.
April 7, 2015
Really glad I read Yep's "The Lost Garden" first. I understand this story's genesis better. If you enjoyed "Kirra, Kirra" this would be a good next book. Christmas story/Oriental novel/4th grade reading level.
March 8, 2017
I think I would have liked it better without the touch of the supernatural.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews