In this story of a boy named Otter who circumstance forces him to leave his home in China in the year 1867. He goes to live in California live with his father and uncle. The situation he faces is unlike the vision he had of his new home. He discovers that the Chinese workers endure horrific treatment by their employers. They are apart of a group that is slowly building a railroad across the Sierra Nevada mountains. ( )

This is a story about a fifteen-year-old Chinese boy who accidentally kills a Manchu, a member of the tyrannical ruling class in China. He is sent to America to join his father, uncle, and others build a tunnel for the continental railroad through the Sierra Nevada mountains in 1867.
The themes in this book are: Chinese laborers, emigration, cold and hunger, poverty and exhaustion, maimings and death, and survival and adventure. This book appeals to students who enjoy realistic/ historical fiction.

This is the story of Otter, a Chinese boy who joins his father and uncle in America to work on the railroad. It's part of the Golden Mountain Chronicles. The books stand alone, though, or at least this one does. I just picked out a couple from the series that sounded the most interesting (this one and one about the 1903 SF earthquake) to try it. The writing's pretty good, though, so I may eventually try to get the rest.

Sadly, I didn't actually know much about this particular bit of history. I knew that Chinese laborers worked on the railroads and was under no illusions about what the conditions must have been like, but I didn't actually know any of the details. So it's an interesting read for that alone, but the story itself is pretty good, too.

I am not a fan of translating names, but in this case since it's nicknames I'm willing to give the author a little slack. ( )

Diversity in classroom. Great for grades 5-8. Fiction. When he accidentally kills a Manchu, a Chinese boy is sent to America to join his father, an uncle, and other Chinese working to build a tunnel for the transcontinental railroad through the Sierra Nevada mountains in 1867. The only illustrations are on the cover and they seem to be drawn with color pencils.

Young Adult book about a Chinese boy who comes to the US to work on a Railroad in the Sierra Nevadas. It is pretty predictable. He talks about how the workers came to the US & then went back to China & influenced the development of China, which is something I had not previously thought about.