Child of the Owl by Laurence Yep

1965: Casey is a twelve year old Chinese girl, living in San Francisco with her father Barney. Barney is a gambling addict who always gets in trouble but promises Casey time after time he will better his life and get a real job and a real house.
But things went different: Barney gets beat up and lands in the hospital, and Casey is send to her uncle Phil's house. Uncle Phil's family and Casey don't get up very well, and after a discussion they decide Casey will be better off at her grandmother's (Paw-Paw in Chinese)
in San Francisco's Chinatown.

Chinatown is a very different new world for Casey too, because Barney didn't introduce her that much into their Chinese culture.
Casey feels lost in Chinatown, she can't speak or read the language. She's not prepared for the Chinese school, the noisy crowds, missing her father. But Paw-Paw tells her about the mother Casey never knew, and about her family's owl charm and her true Chinese name. And Casey at last begins to understand that this -- Paw-Paw's Chinatown home, her parents' home -- is her home,too..

I gave this book a second try after I had read it a few years ago and didn't get into the story. Now I have read it a second time, it seems a totally different book to me than the first time I picked it up, and I don't understand why I didn't get into it then, because this book is just wonderful.
The story is all about the culture of Chinatown in San Francisco in the 60's. the place where the author Laurence Yep grew up. He knows Chinatown from inside out and you can read that through the story of Casey, who is an amazing main character. The owl charm she gets from Paw-Paw is the red line trough the story. A must read for everyone who loves Asian-American fiction and childre''s books. I only couldn't choose which cover image to use for this review, they both are beautiful, but somehow I liked the vintage one with Casey in front of a window with Chinese characters better, the copy I have looks like this: