The Star Fisher

By Laurence Yep

Book Overview

"This poignant, gently humorous novel is about prejudice and acceptance....15-year-old Joan Lee is a child of two worlds. As a Chinese American, she has never felt her separateness more than now, in 1927, in this new place in West Virginia. Only Miss Lucy, their landlord and neighbor, seems welcoming....There's nothing coy about Yep's portrait of prejudice, which he sketches from several angles."--Booklist. "A pleasure to read, entertaining its audience even as it educates their hearts."--Horn Book.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688093655
• ISBN13: 9780688093655
• Release Date: May 1991
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.7" x 6.0"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

Great Lessons Learned

The Star Fisher is not what I expected it to be. I thought the girl on the cover, who was leaning on a fence, was a farm girl. Instead, she turned out to be a laundry man's daughter. Reading this book was a pure enjoyment. Laurence Yep wrote a very enchanting story. On every page the family finds more and more ways to live and fit in. I recommend this novel to people ages 8 and up. The Star Fisher is very fascinating, once you enter, you come to appreciate what Joan went through. If you read this book you will enjoy it!!!

Dealing With Diversity

I really enjoyed reading this book. The story is about a Chinese-American family who struggles to fit in. The mama, papa, Joan, Emily, and Bobby all suffer rejection in their new homtown. Eventually the towns people begin to accept them. The book has a great ending that I will let you read for yourself. I reccomend this book. Kathy McNeel

I think this was an excellent novel

This book is about a fifteen year old girl called Joan. She is from Ohio and came to West Virginia to make a new life. When she first came right off the train there were no greetings instead they got bad comments. A lot of people did not treat the Lee's like Americans, although Joan, Bobby, and Emily were born in America. People made fun of the Lee's because they are chinese. Sometimes in the story Joan would compare herself with the star fisher, which is a chinese folk tale. After a pie social, the Lee's start to feel more accepted by more than just a few town members. One thing because they are the first chinese- americans Clarsburg has ever seen doesn't mean that they have any differences, they are still humans they have feelings too.

A very, very good book!

This book is a very good book. It is about a 1920's Chinese family that has emigrated from Ohio to West Virgina to start a laundry business. The main character is Joan Lee. She and her family face racial discrimination in their new home, but their kindly landlady Miss Lucy helps them. Joan often relates her own feelings and emotions to that of the starfisher, a character in the story she often tells her sister, Emily. This is a very good book to teach about prejudice and tolerance to other cultures. I give this book five stars!

I thought this was an OK book.

I thought that this book was good, but it lacked excitement now and then. The story flowed extremely well, and it had a very strong pace. I thought that it was a little bit too much like Yep's last book Dragon Wings though. I think an author should choose different subjects for his books. Back to this book, I liked how things were described, but sometimes I wished I could have had a little more information so I could have pictured the characters better. Even so, I enjoyed this book, and I recommend it to you! -Katharine Manning, American School In Japan, 6th Grade.