ALA Booklist

This is an engaging survival-adventure story, a social history, a heroic quest. The story opens in rural China in 1865 as 14-year-old Otter, the privileged son of wealthy land owners, eagerly sails to California to join his father and legendary uncle on the transcontinental railroad. On a freezing, snow-filled mountain in the Sierras, Otter begins his harrowing journey toward self-knowledge as a member of a crew of outcasts headed by Uncle Foxfire, a dreamer who seems to have been defeated as much by western racism as by the fears of his Chinese companions. While the long tale brings together the many hardships known to have been suffered by Chinese laborers--cold and hunger, poverty and exhaustion, maimings and death--it is leavened by some humor. The language has an appealing naturalism, and the concerns (equality, identity, family loyalty, ethnic conflict) are universally human. While the cast is large, the characterization is balanced; Yep shows that even the Irish overseer who viciously whips Otter is an idealist. This dovetails nicely with Yep's The Serpent's Children and Mountain Light A research note and scholarly bibliography are appended. (Reviewed Jan. 1, 1994)

Horn Book

Otter, who has always dreamed of coming to America, gets his wish when he accidentally kills a Manchu, a member of the tyrannical ruling class in China. How he manages to overcome severe disappointment in his father and uncle as well as brutal conditions while working on the construction of the transcontinental railroad is the central core of a story that affords insight into a far-from-glamorous chapter of American history.

Kirkus Reviews

Yep illuminates the Chinese immigrant experience here and abroad in a follow-up to The Serpent's Children (1984) and Mountain Light (1985). After accidentally killing one of the hated Manchu soldiers, Otter (14) flees Kwangtung for the Golden Mountain''; he finds his adoptive father Squeaky and Uncle Foxfire in the Sierra Nevada, where thousands ofGuests'' are laboriously carving a path for the railroad. Brutal cold, dangerous work, and a harsh overseer take their toll as Squeaky is blinded in a tunnel accident, Foxfire is lost in a storm, and other workers are frozen or half-starved. By the end, toughened in body and spirit, Otter resolves never to forget them or their sacrifices. Foxfire and Otter consider themselves only temporary residents here, preparing for the more important work of modernizing their own country while ridding it of Manchu, Europeans, and, especially, the scourge of opium. America is a dreamlike place; English dialogue is printed in italics as a tongue foreign to most of the characters; and though Otter befriends the overseer's troubled son, such social contact is discouraged on both sides. In a story enlivened with humor and heroism, Yep pays tribute to the immigrants who played such a vital role in our country's history. Explanatory note; reading list. (Fiction. 11-14)"

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

This 1994 Newbery Honor Book, a prequel to Dragonwings, tells of 14-year-old Otter's 1865 emigration from China and subsequent travails in California. Ages 10-up. (May)

School Library Journal

Gr 6-10-Yep uses the lively storytelling techniques of his Dragon'' fantasy-adventure novels to re-create a stirring historical event-here, the construction of the transcontinental railroad. Serpent's Children (1984) and Mountain Light (1985, both HarperCollins) described the political and natural disasters that led to widespread famine in 19th-century Southern China. Cassia and Foxfire, theSerpent's Children,'' came from a long line of revolutionaries. Foxfire followed his dreams across the sea to the Golden Mountain,'' California, where he earned enough money to revitalize his village. Dragon's Gate opens in China with Foxfire making a triumphant visit home. Otter, Cassia's adopted son, who tells the story, worships his uncle and longs to follow him back to the Golden Mountain. Granted his wish at last, Otter finds Foxfire working onSnow Tiger,'' a mountain in the Sierra Nevada range, where Chinese laborers strive to hew a tunnel through solid rock. Appalled by the living conditions and disillusioned with his uncle, Otter must struggle to survive racial prejudice, cold, starvation, the foreman's whip, and the dangers of frostbite and avalanche while trying to reconcile his ideals and dreams with harsh reality, and to find his place in a strange land. Combining believable characters with thrilling adventure, Yep convinces readers that the Chinese railroad workers were indeed men to match the towering mountains of the west. Because the first few chapters, set in China, may be a bit confusing to children who have not read the previous two books, this will likely need booktalking.-Margaret A. Chang, North Adams State College, MA