Winner of the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Award at the BC Book Prizes, White Jade Tiger is a wonderful young adult novel now taught in may schools throughout B.C. Jasmine is not sure she likes the idea of being stuck in Victoria while her father goes to China for a year. But on a field trip to Chinatown, she explores a curious shop in Fan Tan Alley and accidentally passes through a half-hidden door. She finds herself in Victoria's Chinatown of the 1880s where everyone is busy building the great Canadian Pacific Railway. Mistaken for a Chinese boy, she is soon caught up in a race through the Fraser Canyon to find a lost tiger amulet with her new friend, Keung, before its powers are revealed to the wrong owner. Julie Lawson has also included a historic chronology of the Chinese settlers in B.C.

Now White Jade Tiger can be shared with an entire class and enjoyed by students not only as fiction but as a unique way of understanding a lively period in Canadian history. A comprehensive teacher's guide, written by Anne Nilsen, provides a thoughtful and imaginative approach to Vancouver Island's rich heritage using visuals, games and exercises to explore many facets of its life and times. The guide investigates the working and living conditions while building the CPR as well as ancient cultural and mythological beliefs, the geography and transport of the 1880s and other issues relevant to the era--racism, injustice, immigration, settlement policy and much more. Nilsen uses current Language Arts curriculum from grades 5 to 8 and makes it fun with scavenger hunts, mapping games, field trips, a book project, diorama and much much more. Copies of photographs from the archives and useful supplemental reading are also included.

5.5 x 8.5 Trade paperback 198 pp ISBN 0-88878-332-9 $8.95 CDN $5.95 US