The Star Fisher

Rating:
Summary: The Star Fisher - Book Review
Review: "I thought I knew what green was until we went to West Virginia." That's how Star Fisher, by Laurence Yep, starts off. The book is about a Chinese - American family who moves from Ohio to West Virginia in the 1920' s. They start a laundry bussiness, and try to fit in. Joan Lee (the main character) finds new friends and finds a new relationship with her mother.
I thought the book was good. My favorite character is Joan' s sister Emily, because she was funny, smart, and brave. She always says what she feels. Some parts were sad. Like when she gets into a fight with her mother. Although I thought it was sad, their fights drag on and on. Other than that I enjoyed reading The Star Fisher.

Rating:
Summary: The Star Fisher - Book Review
Review: "I thought I knew what green was until we went to West Virginia." That's how Star Fisher, by Laurence Yep, starts off. The book is about a Chinese - American family who moves from Ohio to West Virginia in the 1920' s. They start a laundry bussiness, and try to fit in. Joan Lee (the main character) finds new friends and finds a new relationship with her mother.
I thought the book was good. My favorite character is Joan' s sister Emily, because she was funny, smart, and brave. She always says what she feels. Some parts were sad. Like when she gets into a fight with her mother. Although I thought it was sad, their fights drag on and on. Other than that I enjoyed reading The Star Fisher.

Rating:
Summary: I think this was an excellent novel
Review: Fifteen-year-old Joan, a Chinese-American girl from Ohio, travels to a rural village in West Virginia in 1927. This daring move makes her family the first Chinese people this town has ever seen. She and her parents immediately discover how odd they are as viwed by prejudiced bums and snobby schoolmates. The Lee family has staked everything on this gamble to unknown territory--without any extended famly to help--where they plan to open a laundry business, as they did in Ohio. Will the townsfolk flock to this new establishment, or continue washing their own dirty shirts?

The first week is a terrible strain on both the parents but especially for Joan, suffering the pangs of teenage acceptance at school and justified rebellion at home. Deeply hurt by rejection from the town in general and a snobby clique at school, Joan feels she just can't fit in, and will never be accepted, although she is praised by her teachers. Then too, she makes a tactical error by befriending a red-headed outcast whose family are Performers! Despite repeated vandalism and hate slogans on their fence, the Lee family refuses to give up and leave. Can a gracious, retired school teacher, with no family of her own, be accepted and adopted by suspicious Chinese parents--who refuse to accept charity from their kind landlady? How far will adults and even their children go to keep from becoming objects of town ridicule or bringing shame upon their family's strict code of honor? We mark Joan's budding maturity, as she recognizes that she is not the only Star Fisher (reference to a Chinese Folktale which is presented in detail) in town. An excellent introduction to culture clash in America.

Rating:
Summary: Discovering Star Fishers even in America
Review: Fifteen-year-old Joan, a Chinese-American girl from Ohio, travels to a rural village in West Virginia in 1927. This daring move makes her family the first Chinese people this town has ever seen. She and her parents immediately discover how odd they are as viwed by prejudiced bums and snobby schoolmates. The Lee family has staked everything on this gamble to unknown territory--without any extended famly to help--where they plan to open a laundry business, as they did in Ohio. Will the townsfolk flock to this new establishment, or continue washing their own dirty shirts?

The first week is a terrible strain on both the parents but especially for Joan, suffering the pangs of teenage acceptance at school and justified rebellion at home. Deeply hurt by rejection from the town in general and a snobby clique at school, Joan feels she just can't fit in, and will never be accepted, although she is praised by her teachers. Then too, she makes a tactical error by befriending a red-headed outcast whose family are Performers! Despite repeated vandalism and hate slogans on their fence, the Lee family refuses to give up and leave. Can a gracious, retired school teacher, with no family of her own, be accepted and adopted by suspicious Chinese parents--who refuse to accept charity from their kind landlady? How far will adults and even their children go to keep from becoming objects of town ridicule or bringing shame upon their family's strict code of honor? We mark Joan's budding maturity, as she recognizes that she is not the only Star Fisher (reference to a Chinese Folktale which is presented in detail) in town. An excellent introduction to culture clash in America.

Rating:
Summary: Dealing With Diversity
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. The story is about a Chinese-American family who struggles to fit in. The mama, papa, Joan, Emily, and Bobby all suffer rejection in their new homtown. Eventually the towns people begin to accept them. The book has a great ending that I will let you read for yourself. I reccomend this book.

Kathy McNeel

Rating:
Summary: For EDEL 414
Review: Our first impression of The Star Fisher was that its plot would consist of the typical cultural conflict along with a family's struggle to achieve the elusive American dream. However, Yep did a wonderful job of creating characters that made this book much more than that.
Joan Lee, the main character, is a fifteen-year old Chinese-Ameriacan girl striving to find her place in a small West Virginia community. The inclusion of the old Chinese folktale The Star Fisher serves as a symbolic representation of Joan's struggle to fit into a world that seems very foreign to her in many ways.
We would recommend this book to anyone who has ever felt ostracized because of their cultural differences as well as to those who have been responsible for causing these feelings in another person. There is certainly a lesson to be learned from Joan Lee who is a star fisher in her own unique way.

Rating:
Summary: The Star Fisher
Review: The one-sentence summary I found in the book is the following: "Fifteen-year-old Joan Lee and her family find the adjustment hard when they move from Ohio to West Virginia in the 1920's." Joan and her family are treated badly by most people, because of their race and also because they are new to that town. Then, Joan's mother bakes an apple pie for a church social. When the other town people find out how good the pie tastes, Mrs. Lee becomes modest and says that she had a good teacher, Miss. Lucy. Because of the apple pie, and Joan's friend's curiosity, the others accept the difference of the Lee's and they treat each other equally.

Rating:
Summary: A very, very good book!
Review: This book is a very good book. It is about a 1920's Chinese family that has emigrated from Ohio to West Virgina to start a laundry business. The main character is Joan Lee. She and her family face racial discrimination in their new home, but their kindly landlady Miss Lucy helps them. Joan often relates her own feelings and emotions to that of the starfisher, a character in the story she often tells her sister, Emily. This is a very good book to teach about prejudice and tolerance to other cultures. I give this book five stars!

Rating:
Summary: The Star Fisher
Review: This book let me feel that Chinese are aspiring and adaptable. They are brave to attempt in order to have a better life, starting their business from zero in somewhere they don't know.
The story is about a Chinese-American girl, Joan, moving from Ohio to West Virginia with her family in order to start a bigger successful laundry. At first, they had to face many problems, for instance, they were discriminated because of their eastern appearance. But finally, the problems were solved by the help of Miss Lucy, the owner of their property.
From Joan¡¦s mother, I can see that how a mother love her children. Joan¡¦s mother was a traditional Chinese woman who would never tell her children directly that she loves them.However, she would show it by taking action, such as Joan¡¦s mother didn¡¦t know how to cook and communicate with others in English. Because of the mind of loving her children, she didn¡¦t give up any chance of studying from Miss Lucy, although she felt that it is a shame to be helped by the others.
The story is similar to the experience of Yep's family, the author, which makes me feel that it is realistic, not a story. It deserves to be read.