| Laurence Yep,
The Amah
Putnam Publishing, 1999.
Revisiting characters from earlier books (Ribbons
and The Cook's Family), Yep follows another one of
the girls who are part of a group of friends Iiving
in a contemporary Bay Area city. Amy Chin is practicing
her ballet role as one of the evil stepsisters in
Cinderella while she struggles with increased responsibilities
at home when her mother takes a job as an amah,
or governess, to a wealthy, and seemingly perfect
girl about the same age as Amy. Amy struggles with
feelings of inadequacy and frustration and, of course,
learns a lesson about people and herself.
The story is a bit formulaic, but Yep also manages
to convey, for the most part, believable characters.
The Chinatown residents and the characters from the
previous books are obviously close to Yep's heart,
but some characters are just there to move the story
along, and he has a tendency, especially in this "Young
Adult" category, to keep those characters very hollow.
Sumi Hayashi
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