Ghost Train
CBC Books | CBC | Posted: March 8, 2017 9:16 PM | Last Updated: April 18, 2017
Paul Yee, illustrated by Harvey Chan
The story of a young Chinese girl who arrives in North America only to discover that her father has died building the railway.
This powerful, unforgettable and multi-award-winning tale is based on the lives of the Chinese who settled on the west coast of North America in the early 1900s.
Left behind in China by her father, who has gone to North America to find work, Choon-yi has made her living by selling her paintings in the market. When her father writes one day and asks her to join him, she joyously sets off, only to discover that he has been killed.
Choon-yi sees the railway and the giant train engines that her father died for, and she is filled with an urge to paint them. But her work disappoints her until a ghostly presence beckons her to board a train where she meets the ghosts of the men who died building the railway. She is able to give them peace by returning their bones to China where they were born.
Ghostly, magical and yet redeeming, this tale by Paul Yee is superbly illustrated by Harvey Chan. (From Groundwood Books)
From the book
One day long ago, a girl named Choon-yi was born to poor peasants in South China. Alas, she arrived with only one arm, which greatly horrified her mother. But Choon-yi's father loved his daughter dearly. He made sure that her childhood days were happy ones, even though the family owned no land and had only a few scrawny pigs to tend.
From Ghost Train by Paul Yee ©1996. Published by House of Anansi.