• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

Winner of the 1993 Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize, shortlisted for the Silver Birch Award and the CLA Book of the Year Award

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 hidden door. She finds herself in Victoria’s Chinatown of the late 1880’s. Mistaken for a Chinese boy, she is soon caught up in a race through the Fraser Canyon to find a tiger amulet.

Julie Lawson is the author of over 30 books for children and young adults. Her critically acclaimed works have received numerous award nominations, including the Children's Book Centre Award for A Blinding Light, the Canadian Library Association Award for White Jade Tiger, and Forest of Reading Awards for Goldstone, Ghosts of the Titanic, A Ribbon of Shining Steel, and many more. Her YA novels include White Jade Tiger (winner of the Sheila A. Egoff BC Children's Fiction Prize), No Safe Harbour (winner of the Hackmattack Children's Choice Award) and A Blinding Light (runner-up for the City Of Victoria Bolen Books Prize).

Julie writes from her home in Victoria, BC.

Julie Lawson's profile page

• Runner-up, CLA Book of the Year Award
• Short-listed, Silver Birch Award
• Winner, Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize

Lawson's book is especially recommended for strong readers with an interest in history.

Times-Colonist

White Jade Tiger opens up a window onto another world, and allows recognition of the riches inherent in another culture.

Kathleen Bailey

Julie Lawson has written a story so well grounded in real-life Victoria, B.C., now and in 1881, that the fantasy of time travel between our time and the past seems natural and necessary. White Jade Tiger is successful, both at telling a gripping story and finishing it in a satisfying, believable way.

Times-Colonist

Young-adult readers will enjoy meeting Jasmine and Keung and sharing their adventures as they search for the white jade tiger. Recommended.

CBRA

Lawson successfully combines a very real sense of period, a vivd portrait of the lives of the Chinese workers who built the railway, and an exciting adventure.

The Vancouver Sun

"Lawson's considerable ability to bring her characters to life, and the adept use of dialogue and description, make this a highly recommended book."

Joyce L. White

This is a complex and ambitious first novel. Lawson skilfully interweaves the narratives of present and past, exploring the concerns of each on many levels. The examination of racism and greed in B.C.'s early days is well integrated into the narrative.

Quill and Quire