Bridge Across the Sky - by Freeman Ng

Book Synopsis

A "lyrical and introspective" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) historical novel in verse about a Chinese teen who immigrates to the United States with his family and endures mistreatment at the Angel Island Immigration Station while trying to navigate his own course in a new world.

Tai Go and his family have crossed an ocean wider than a thousand rivers, joining countless other Chinese immigrants in search of a better life in the United States. Instead, they're met with hostility and racism. Empowered by the Chinese Exclusion Act, the government detains the immigrants on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay while evaluating their claims.

Held there indefinitely, Tai Go experiences the prison-like conditions, humiliating medical exams, and interrogations designed to trick detainees into failure. Yet amid the anger and sorrow, Tai Go also finds hope--in the poems carved into the walls of the barracks by others who have been detained there, in the actions of a group of fellow detainees who are ready to fight for their rights, in the friends he makes, and in a perceived enemy whose otherness he must come to terms with.

Unhappy at first with his father's decision to come to the United States, Tai Go must overcome the racism he discovers in both others and himself and forge his own version of the American Dream.

Review Quotes

★ "A vivid verse novel inspired by the anonymous poems of Chinese detainees found at Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco. . . . Ng examines the history of white imperialism and racism through lyrical and introspective verse, while conversational dialogue fosters intimacy and immediacy with contemporary readers."--Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

". . . offers an intimate look at the sometimes-distraught, sometimes-hopeful experience many real-life Chinese immigrants lived. Ng brings a visceral sense to the captives' ordeals, sometimes juxtaposing them with the accounts of staff . . . Fans of Margarita Engle's The Lightning Dreamer (2013) and similar historical novels in verse infused with political and social struggles as well as hope will enjoy this rich story."--Booklist

"Despair and hope mingle in this free-verse novel set in the Angel Island detention center in 1924. . . . A vivid depiction of a lesser-known chapter in U.S history."--Kirkus Reviews "6/1/24"

"This historical novel in verse is superb, conveying the magnitude of disrespect, hatred, and racist practices Chinese immigrants had to endure."--School Library Journal

About the Author

Freeman Ng is a former Google software engineer who's now writing full time. Though he lived most of his life a twenty-minute ferry ride from Angel Island and his father entered the country through a process similar to the one described in Freeman's Bridge Across the Sky (except through Seattle), he never thought about the station and its history until he heard about the poems on the walls. Then he knew he had to write about them, and that it had to be in verse. Visit him at AuthorFreeman.com.