Congrats Heather & Allison
on the release today of
The Paper Daughters of Chinatown!
The Paper Daughters of Chinatown: Adapted for Young Readers from the Best-Selling Novel by Heather B. Moore & Allison Hong Merrill
Middle Grade/Young Adult Historical Fiction, 240 pages
Published April 11, 2023 by Shadow Mountain
Published April 11, 2023 by Shadow Mountain
Based on the true story of two friends who unite to help rescue immigrant women and girls in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the late 1890s.
When Tai Choi leaves her home in the Zhejiang province of China, she believes it’s to visit her grandmother. But despite her mother’s opposition, her father has sold her to pay his gambling debts. Alone and afraid, Tai Choi is put on a ship headed for “Gold Mountain” (San Francisco). When she arrives, she’s forced to go by the name on her forged papers: Tien Fu Wu.
Her new life as a servant is hard. She is told to stay hidden, stay silent, and perform an endless list of chores, or she will be punished or sold again. If she is to survive, Tien Fu must persevere, and learn who to trust. Her life changes when she’s rescued by the women at the Occidental Mission Home for Girls.
When Dolly Cameron arrives in San Francisco to teach sewing at the mission home, she meets Tien Fu, who is willful, defiant, and unwilling to trust anyone. Dolly quickly learns that all the girls at the home were freed from servitude and maltreatment, and enthusiastically accepts a role in rescuing more.
Despite challenges, Dolly and Tien Fu forge a powerful friendship as they mentor and help those in the mission home and work to win the freedom of enslaved immigrant women and girls.
My thoughts about The Paper Daughters of Chinatown ~~
(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first line.)
First line—"Tai Choi pounded her fists on the door and screamed, 'Let me out! Lao Ye, where did you go?' How could Tai Choi's father think of locking her in here?"
I read The Paper Daughters of Chinatown when it came out in 2020 and was enthralled by the way the author portrayed the hard times of the Chinese women in China, as well as the horrible lives they lived here in America. Heather B. Moore writes amazing and well-researched historical fiction and I have learned so much from reading her books.
I was excited when I found out that Heather, along with Allison Hong Merrill, wrote a young reader edition of this compelling, heart-breaking time in our history. I just knew I had to read it and was interested to see how she would depict these hard lives to young people.
They did an amazing job with the hard stuff, focusing on a young girl, Tien Fu, as she is taken from her family and forced to live an unimaginable life in America. There is enough drama and hardship for young readers to understand how hard it was for Chinese children but also enough love and caring to make it uplifting for them. So heart-breaking but also so very heart-warming.
I would highly recommend this for young readers who are interested in reading about history as this is a well written, informative novel about a significant time in our history.
I received a copy of The Paper Daughters of Chinatown from the publisher and this is my honest opinion.
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Watch this interview with the authors
About the authors
Heather B. Moore is a USA Today bestseller and award-winning author of more than seventy publications. She’s lived in Hawaii and on both the east and west coasts of the United States. She attended school abroad, including the Cairo American College in Egypt and the Anglican School of Jerusalem in Israel. She loves to learn about history and, as an author, is passionate about historical research. Visit Heather’s website here: HBMoore.com
Other Books by Heather B. Moore:
The Paper Daughters of Chinatown
The Slow March of Light
In the Shadow of a Queen
Connect with Heather
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Allison Hong Merrill was born and raised in Taiwan and came to the US at twenty-two as a university student. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and writes fiction and creative nonfiction in both Chinese and English. Her work has won both national and international literary awards. Visit Allison at www.AllisonHongMerrill.com and sign up for her short monthly email.
Other Books by Allison Hong Merrill:
Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops
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