Chinese Railroad Workers

School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-Sinnott details the importation of Chinese workers, the expectations and treatment of them, and their astonishing feats in building the western end of the transcontinental railroad. The clear and lively text make this a good source for reports or pleasure reading. It is illustrated throughout with black-and-white archival photographs and full-color reproductions. The cover illustration of a train emerging from a snow shed in the high Sierras above Donner Lake, circa. 1866, is particularly appealing. However, flatlanders from the Rockies to the Atlantic, who have never seen the Sierras and who do not know of the Donner party, its tragedy, and the locale of this tragedy, may have a tough time understanding allusions to these essential bits of information. Unfortunately, there is only one map-too tiny to yield details. Dan Elish's The Transcontinental Railroad (Millbrook, 1993) is better illustrated in this regard.-George Gleason, Department of English, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield

Hazel Rochman

Despite the title, this account is more about the big planners, financiers, and construction bosses than about the Chinese laborers who built the Central Pacific Railroad. As is usual in the First Book series, the design is accessible, with clear type, black-and-white photos, and some contemporary paintings reproduced in color. The construction of the transcontinental railroad across the U.S. is an exciting part of history, and Sinnott gets across the drive of the technology, the formidable obstacles overcome, the excitement of the competition. She discusses the discrimination toward the Chinese immigrants and devotes a page to their unsuccessful 1867 strike against backbreaking working conditions. But, except for a brief quote from Maxine Hong Kingston about her father, there's almost nothing here about how the Chinese Americans saw themselves: what they thought and felt about their daily lives, laying tracks across the Sierra Nevada and through the tunnels, far from home.