White Jade Tiger

Darleen R. Golke is a high-school teacher and librarian in Winnipeg.

Thirteen-year-old Jasmine Steele’s comfortable world in Sooke, B.C.,
changes abruptly when an automobile crash claims her mother’s life. As
Jasmine struggles to understand and accept her loss, dreams of Bright
Jade of the Qin Dynasty, a white jade tiger amulet, and of a
19th-century Chinese boy fill her nights. When Jasmine’s father
accepts a temporary teaching post in Beijing, China, Jasmine is left to
live with her Aunt Val in a Victoria condominium minutes from Chinatown.

Jasmine’s pain over her mother’s death and her anger at her
father’s abandonment fade only when she works on a memory quilt that
allows her to feel “safe, leafing through the fragments of her
past.” A scheduled class trip to Chinatown prompts Aunt Val’s
suggestion that Jasmine dress as a coolie. As Jasmine browses in the
never-ending store, she steps through a doorway to Fan Tan Alley and
back into the 1880s. In the past, she meets 15-year-old Chan Tai Keung
and accompanies him to the Fraser Valley in search of his missing
father. Despite a series of misadventures, they finally find a dying
Chan Sam and the white jade tiger amulet. Back in the present, Jasmine
learns of her Chinese ancestry from Aunt Val, and begins to understand
Bright Jade’s plan for her.

Lawson’s own trip to China and her interest in the building of the
Canadian Pacific Railway combine to produce an exciting story with a
well-drawn, strong female character. Successfully using the mode of
past-time fantasy, the author explores the hardships faced by the
Chinese who worked on the construction of the CPR, and the racism and
lack of respect to which they were subjected. The squares of the memory
quilt mirror Jasmine’s emotional development as she comes to terms
with the changes in her life. Young-adult readers will enjoy meeting
Jasmine and Keung and sharing their adventures as they search for the
white jade tiger. Recommended.