The Rainbow People

by Laurence Yep

Book Overview

"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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0064404412
• ISBN13: 9780064404419
• Release Date: August 1992
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 7.6"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

An interesting read...

The Rainbow People by Laurence Yep is a very interesting collection of Chinese myths. People who short stories over novels will enjoy this book. The Rainbow People is divided into five sections, which are titled "Tricksters," Fools," "Virtues and Vices," "In Chinese America," and "Love." Each of these sections has an short introduction that gives us a hint about the upcoming theme. Some of the sections have contrasting ideas; for example, "Tricksters" is about people who are smarter than they think they are, but "Fools" is about people who think they are smarter than they are.My favorite stories were in "Tricksters" and "Virtues and Vices," but I enjoyed reading all of them. Reading this book gave me a good idea of the Chinese culture. I recommend this book for people who just like to sit down for about five minutes and read a short story. It also helps if you are interested in different cultures around the world. For those of you who want to finish a book in one stretch, this isn't the book for you.

The Rainbow People

The Rainbow People has a lot of stories on life like there is a section on tricksters and a section on fools which is my favorite section with my favorite story The Eels Disguise which is about a fool who makes a decision to have eels and he tries to wash them and loses them in the water a thinks that turtle Is an eel? I like this book because it lets you get a feeling on people perspective on life. That is why I recommend this book also this will give you a chuckle here and there The things that I don't like is that is that some stories are tragic because a lot of peoples family Are killed by monsters. In the end I think this book is great book so get out and buy it.

Great Source of Chinese and Chinese American Tales

Yep for the most part retells and combines stories collected by Jon Lee in a 1930's WPA project in Oakland's Chinatown from Chinese who would trace their ancestry to Kwangtung, China. (xi) The stories are broken up into Tricksters, Fools, Virtues and Vices, In Chinese America, and Love tales. Each section has a brief introduction which contains some history and cultural information as well as additional source information. Each story has a bookmark size brush and ink illustration. The illustrations add a glimpse into the stories.Yep's stories are very readable, but might need a little trimming for telling. These stories are interesting and offer a look into the lives of the earliest Chinese Americans.

Teaching Tales

Getting students to see the connection between their classes is often difficult. Students in middle school do not see that Literature and Social Studies are interconnected. Yep's tales help suppliment an often "boring" unit on Ancient China.