The Star Maker by Laurence Yep

Title: The Star Maker
Author: Laurence Yep
Reviewer: Stephanie
Genre: YA Fiction
Rating: Adore
Alerts/Warnings: Minor mentions of gambling (with some negative consequences) and bullying/teasing/namecalling
Premise: If only Artie had kept his mouth shut.

But his mean cousin Petey was putting him down, so Artie started bragging.

Now he has to come up with enough money to buy firecrackers for all his cousins by the Lunar New Year.

Luckily, there's one person he can count on . . . Uncle Chester!

Newbery Honor Book author Laurence Yep celebrates family and Chinese New Year traditions in this story of a boy and his uncle who discover that age doesn't matter when it comes to helping out a friend. (goodreads.com)

Opinions: Part of the appeal of this book for me was that the characters are all Chinese and it is dealing with Chinese Americans in San Fransisco. Now I fully admit that I enjoy lots of things Chinese at the moment. So that being said, I liked this book. It wasn't a long book (took me less than an hour to read). Nor was it a book that I think will change the world in any drastic way. But I loved the quietness of it. It was a pleasant story of Artie who figures out what is important to him and what does and does not matter.

I liked the prologue and the epilogue that talk about the reality of Laurence Yep's childhood and how he lived and celebrated his Chinese heritage (This book is based on Mr. Yep's childhood). This is a quiet book, but a very beautiful book. I like that it gets to the point and doesn't drag it out. I very much enjoyed reading it.