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Dragon's Gate
Dragon's Gate is a 1867 children's historical novel by Laurence Yep, published byHarperCollins in 1995. It inaugurated the Golden Mountain Chronicles and it is the third chronicle in narrative sequence among ten published as of 2012.

Laurence Yep won the Award in Children's Literature and received Newbery Medal Honors book in 1994 for Dragon's Gate.

Golden Mountain Chronicles
The family saga follows the Young family, initially in China. Dragons of Silk (2011) spans a few generations and brings the story to the present; nine previous novels have been dated 1849 to 1995. Four of the ten historical novels are among Yep's five works most widely held in WorldCat libraries.
 * 1) The Serpent's Children, set in 1849 (1984)
 * 2) Mountain Light, 1855 (1985)
 * 3) Dragon's Gate, 1867 (1993)
 * 4) The Traitor, 1885 (2003)
 * 5) Dragonwings, 1903 (1975)
 * 6) Dragon Road, 1939 (2007); originally The Red Warrior
 * 7) Child of the Owl, 1960 (1977)
 * 8) Sea Glass, 1970 (1979)
 * 9) Thief of Hearts, 1995 (1995)
 * 10) Dragons of Silk, 1835-2011 (2011)

Plot
Dragon’s Gate by Laurence Yep's novel sets in California just after the Civil War tells an inspiring personal story,  This is a survival-adventure -- the valiant contribution of Chinese Americans to the building of the transcontinental railroad. A 14-year-old boy named Otter journeys from his home in Three Willows Village, in China, to the icy Sierra Nevada Mountains, where he joins his father and uncle on a work crew that is digging tunnels for the Central Pacific.

In 1866, Otter accidentally kills a Manchu at a place called Dragon's Gate. This site is home to a myth about a carp that swims through rapids and other obstacles, to pass through the gate and become a dragon. Otter's mother, worried for his safety, finally allows him to go to America, the "Land of the Golden Mountain." When he first arrives, Golden Mountain seems worse to Otter than any Chinese prison could be. The men work long hours on little food as they battle the icy cold, trying to pickaxe and blast their way through mountains frozen so solid that Otter at first likens the work to "knocking down a wall with a piece of straw." "I really felt a responsibility to these workers on the railroad," says Laurence Yep, "because they get such short shrift in all the history books... And the fact is, they performed heroic labors... They had to do such things as hang down the cliff face in a basket with a hammer and chisel, make a hole, pack the hole with gunpowder, and then hope that they could be hauled up in time before the explosion went off. I forget how many tons of bones were shipped back to China, of the men who died working on the railroad."

Otter's struggle is not just physical. In China, he had lived well because of the money his father sent back. "It's a shock when he comes to America," says Yep, "because all of sudden Otter he finds that his father and his uncle aren't important; they are at the very bottom of society. What's worse is he's at the very bottom of society. And so here is Otter, he's lived like a prince in China, and he comes to America and all of a sudden he's expected to live like a peasant and a servant, and he doesn't want to accept that."

So Otter must learn the hard lesson that though America had just fought a war for the freedom of its slaves, that freedom does not apply to Chinese workers. He does make a Western friend: Sean, the son of the crew boss. "Sean and Otter are outcasts, so they have that sense of alienation in common," observes Yep. But when Otter's father is blinded in a tunnel explosion and Otter refuses to work as a result, Sean's father whips him until he bleeds. Otter realizes finally what the rest of the work crew has known all along: "We either finish this railroad or die."

Yet as Otter grows into a man, he begins to see that his Uncle Foxfire may be a hero after all -- and that he too may have some of that bravery and defiance. When an avalanche takes out an entire camp of Chinese workers and volunteers are needed for the terrifying job of creeping through a storm to dynamite the remaining snow and prevent another avalanche, Otter and his uncle agree to go. Yep states, "And so with Otter, he's like that little fish, and the Sierra Nevadas, these mountains, are this gate. And when he passes through that gate, he changes. ...Because of the sacrifices of his father and his uncle, he begins to take more responsibility not only for himself, but for other people. And he begins to think about other Chinese, not just even his own clan or his own district; he starts seeing in a more general way that they all have things in common."

Dragon's Gate, which is a Newbery Honor book, is part of Laurence Yep's Golden Mountain Chronicles, a series about several generations of a Chinese American family. Yep pays tribute to the immigrants who played such a vital role in our country's history.

Characters

 * Otter-- Age 14. privileged teenager living at home with his mom who felt adventurous and brave to help his uncle and dad building. He is the hero of the story here we see his courage and value.
 * Uncle "Firefox"-- Uncle a victim of racism who devoted his time in the brutal construction of the railroad.
 * Mom-- overprotective mother who seems to love his son otter but the circumstances force her to let go of her son and to let him work to save their town.

Critical Reception
Many critics found that Dragon’s Gate was a engaging survival-adventure story.

Awards

 * Newbery Medal Honor Book in 2014.1994 Newbery Honor Book


 * Notable Children's Books of 1994 (ALA)
 * 1994 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)
 * 1993 "Pick of the Lists" (ABA)
 * 1994 John and Patricia Beatty Award (California Library Association)
 * 1994 Silver Medal for Literature (Commonwealth Club of America)
 * Author Biography: Laurence Yep is the author of The Imp That Ate My Homework, about which Kirkus Reviews said, "Readers will not be able to put this light, funny fantasy down." He received Newbery Honors in 1975 for Dragonwings and in 1994 for Dragon's Gate. Mr. Yep lives in Pacific Grove, California.
 * Laurence Yep  received Newbery Honors in 1975 for Dragonwings and in 1994 for Dragon's Gate.