Walk Across the Sea

Rating:
Summary: Get Swept Away By Walk Across the Sea
Review: 18th century California was a time of prejudice. Walk Across the Sea, centers around independent Eliza Jane, a young teenage girl who lives with her parents in a northern California lighthouse. When a mysterious Chinese immigrant boy saves her goat from the California waters, she tries to find him to pay him back. She soon learns that prejudice surrounds the Chinese by the people of her town. Along the way helping her is her brave and helpful friend Sadie, her open minded and kind neighbor, Dr Wilton and her pet goat Parthenia. This story has a mix of friendship, prejudice, religion, compassion, and morality. This out of the ordinary story shows prejudice back then and gives lessons on how we can be rid of prejudice today. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested about life in general. Walk Across the Sea makes you think about things that you normally wouldn't think about in life. You learn you always have to been open minded and very conscious of other people and their beliefs. If you want to read a different story, Walk Across the Sea is for you! I also recommend ALL books in the Dear America, My Name Is America, and Royal Diaries Series.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful historical novel.
Review: Ever since she was three years old, Eliza Jane McCully has lived in the lighthouse at Crescent City, California, where her father is the keeper. Now thirteen, Eliza has many responsibilities, helping her father to keep the light burning, and eagerly awaiting the birth of her new baby sibling. One day while chasing her stubborn goat across the pathway to the island, she is caught by a wave. A Chinese boy saves her goat and warns her about the wave just in time. Eliza is confused, because her father has taught her that the Chinese are evil heathens. An unexpected tragedy causes Eliza to doubt her own beliefs as well as questioning her father's. When the townspeople run the Chinese out of Crescent City, Eliza watches in horror, unable to do anything. But when the boy who rescued her comes to her for help, Eliza must make the ultimate decision. Is she is brave enough to openly defy her father? I highly reccomend this novel to readers who enjoy historical fiction.

Rating:
Summary: "Chinese Must Go" *
Review: genre: historical fiction
setting: 1886, Crescent City CA and its lighthouse
1st person account of Eliza, 15 yrs, protagonist

Eliza struggles to come to terms with the contrast/mystery between a merciful God and the loss of a prematurely born sibling together with rampant community prejudice toward Chinese immigrants.

Fletcher's description of lighthouse technology and administration and tidal cycles is captivating for someone who has been landlocked most of his life.

What makes the story is the unmasking of fear and loathing toward Chinese immigrant laborers who came to America to bridge our country from Atlantic to Pacific with the building of the railroad and to incur exploitation for the sake of sustaining loved ones back home.

This is the account of the expulsion of Chinese residents from Crescent City, CA due to fears of job loss by white, Christian families. It is part of my own legacy--Chinese residents were massacred and railroaded out of Rock Springs, WY, my own native state, around the same time.

Fletcher makes good use of artifacts and dialogue of the period to firmly ground the story. The one shortcoming--Chinese characters are underdeveloped. It's an engrossing story.

* title of book chapter