The Forbidden Temptation of Baseball - by Dori Jones Yang (Paperback)

About the Book

One of 120 boys sent to New England in the 1870s by the Emperor of China as part of a Chinese educational mission, 12-year-old Leon falls in love with baseball, even though he's expressly forbidden to play. The boy's host father sees and cultivates Leon's interest, teaching Leon more about America through its favorite sport.

Book Synopsis

Twelve-year-old Leon is among a group of 120 boys sent to New England in the 1870s by the Emperor of China as part of a Chinese educational mission. Once there, he falls in love with baseball, even though he's expressly forbidden to play. The boy's host father, who's recently lost his own son in an accident, sees and cultivates Leon's interest, bringing joy back into his own life and teaching Leon more about America through its favorite sport than any rule-bound educational mission could possibly hope to achieve.

Review Quotes

2018 Washington State Book Awards finalist 2017 Moonbeam Children's Book Awards: Gold Award, Pre-Teen Fiction - Historical/Cultural
2017 USA Best Book Award Winner in Children's Fiction
2017 Freeman Book Awards Winner in Young Adult-High School
2018 IPPY Gold Medal Minner in Multicultural Fiction - Juv-Young Adult 2018 Foreword Indies Finalist in Children's-Juvenile Fiction
2018 IBPA Ben Franklin Awards Finalist in Young Reader: Fiction
2017-2018 Reader Views Literary Award in Children-Teen Age 12 to 16

"This well-written historical novel is filled with intriguing details about Chinese and American customs and lifestyles of the era. Through Leon's expectations and his confrontations with alien customs, the reader learns about both pre-modern Chinese and Victorian-era American societies and technologies. The novel features several appendices, including a short bibliography, questions for discussion, and trivia for readers who will want to learn more. The boys' experiences are both timely and timeless in Yang's deft hands" -VOYA Magazine
"As I read this story, I was continually amazed about what those boys went through not only in traveling to the States but in adjusting to life, education, and customs here." -Kirby Larson, author of Newbery Honor Book Hattie Big Sky
"Through the eyes of the ever curious "Leon" (Woo Ka-Leong), America is a play of both dazzling light and layered shadows. The Forbidden Temptation of Baseball turns our assumptions of America, and the Chinese impact on our history, upside down. A riveting and revealing story for the ages." -Conrad Wesselhoeft, author of Dirt Bikes, Drones, and Other Ways to Fly
"A smart, authentic, and engaging look at the Chinese experience in America through the eyes of an adventurous and loyal boy who journeys into the sometimes welcoming, often hostile environment that was nineteenth-century America. You'll be drawn in by the absorbing history (which is little-known but true) but stay for the characters-and the story that brings them to life." -David Patneaude, author of Thin Wood Walls
"Set against the backdrop of the true story of 120 Chinese students sent to New England by their government to study, Dori follows the lives of Woo Ka-Leong (Leon) and his brother Woo Ka-Sun (Carson), their time with the Swann family of Suffield, Connecticut, and their conquest of baseball in a thoroughly satisfying book that will teach young readers about the Chinese, and to see their own culture through foreign eyes." -Scott D. Seligman, author of Tong Wars and The First Chinese American
"The story shows what it feels like to move to a different country, and how frustrating it is when you have limited language skills. It illustrates the contrasts between the American and Chinese cultures-and how conflicted you can feel when two cultures collide and you're caught in the middle." -Anna X., age 11, Mercer Island, WA, descendant of one of the 120 scholars from the Chinese Educational Mission
"The much-published Dori Jones Yang, in writing this novel, has drawn on historical accounts of the 1870's Chines Educational Mission, as well as her own extended residence in China as a foreign correspondent. She knows whereof she writes." -Edward Rhoads, author of Stepping Forth into the World: The Chinese Educational Mission to the United States, 1872-81
"My great grandfather, Wen Bingzhong, was one of the 'First 100' and I often wondered about his experiences in America. This was a fascinating period in modern Chinese history, and Dori Jones Yang has written a story which describes how this group of young Chinese males might have felt." -Martin Tang, retired chairman, Asia, Spencer Stuart & Associates
"Although the book takes place in 1876, the conflicts and issues raised are completely modern and relevant today as communities wr

About the Author

Dori Jones Yang is a Seattle-area writer with extensive experience making personal connections across boundaries of culture and time. Raised in Ohio, she lived and worked in Singapore and Hong Kong and covered the opening of China as a journalist for Business Week. Married to a Chinese man, she has traveled widely throughout Asia and has raised a Chinese-American child. Her previous books include a young-adult historical novel set in China at the time of Marco Polo and a middle-grade novel about a girl from China who begins fifth grade in Seattle only to discover she has lost her voice. After studying Chinese for many years, Dori knows what it feels like to struggle to express your thoughts in an unfamiliar language. Learn more at www.booksbydori.com.