Lily and the Great Quake:
A San Francisco Earthquake Survival Story
by Veeda Bybee, illustrated by Alessia Trunfio
Stone Arch Books, 2020, 112 pages
On the night of April 17, 1906, Lily, a Chinese American girl living in San Francisco's Chinatown, is celebrating her 12th birthday with her family, mother, father and younger brother Lee and baby sister June, friends and neighbors including elderly Mr. Quan. As a big surprise, Lily is given a copy of her favorite book, The Wizard of Oz and that night, she reads some of it to her brother before bed. But early the next morning, the earth begins to shake, and it keeps shaking as Lily and Lee crouch under the kitchen table while their home begins to fall apart and crumble around them. An earthquake is a scary experience, and this one was a big one, but as Lily and Lee wait to be found, trapped and in darkness, she reminds Lee about the cowardly lion who found needed courage within himself.
Finally, their father locates the siblings and together they dig out of the debris. No one is seriously hurt, except their mom has a badly sprained ankle. It is agreed that Lily and Lee will go ahead with Mr. Quan to the Ferry Building where they will all meet up and take the ferry across the bay to Oakland. The going is slow, partly because everyone else in San Francisco has the same idea, and partly because they are going with Jade See Young, a young women who has bound feet.
As the city of San Francisco burns around them, and people push pass them to escape, Lily and Lee quickly lose sight of Mr. Quan and Jade. On their own now, Lily and Lee are faced instances of racism, with people who push them out of their way, and others who are happy to see Chinatown razed and would like the Chinese people to go back to China. More and more, Lily reminds herself and Lee about how the lion, the scarecrow, and the tinman from her book also had to deal with adversity as they traveled to the Emerald City. But inside, even Lily is worried. Will they be able to find Mr. Quan and Jade? And will they be able to find their parents at the overly crowded Ferry Building, with everyone else trying to get on a boat to get to safety?
Lily and the Great Quake is the fourth book in the Girls Survive series. It is a wonderful chapter book that is filled with information about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, as well as instances of Chinese culture, but it also doesn't shy away from dealing with issues of racism towards Chinese people.
There are plenty of black and white illustrations throughout the book that really capture the destruction an earthquake can cause. Back matter includes an Author's Note, with photographs of San Francisco in the aftermath of the earthquake, a Glossary, and suggestions for reader to Make Connections.
Lily and the Great Quake is the perfect book for celebrating Multicultural Children's Book Day, a great book to read anytime, and to share with other young readers. I can't recommend this book highly enough.
I was gifted this book to review for MCBD2020.
Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2020 (1/31/20) is in its 7th year! This non-profit children’s literacy initiative was founded by Valarie Budayr and Mia Wenjen; two diverse book-loving moms who saw a need to shine the spotlight on all of the multicultural books and authors on the market while also working to get those book into the hands of young readers and educators.
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Hello, Alex! I'm Karin Fisher-Golton. Our two reviews of Lily and the Great Quake ended up right next to each other on the Multicultural Children's Book Day Linky. I hope that helps bring more attention to this excellent chapter book.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your review. I'm glad that you included The Wizard of Oz element as that was something I ended up not mentioning, since I had so much else to say. My review is here: https://karinfisher-golton.com/2020/01/31/lily-and-the-great-quake-mcbd-book-review/.
Happy Multicultural Children's Book Day!