The Tiger's Apprentice

by Laurence Yep Narrated by James Chen

Overview

Soon to be an original animated movie streaming on Paramount+ beginning February 2, 2024, starring Henry Golding, Lucy Liu, Brandon Soo Hoo, Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh, and Golden Globe winner Sandra Oh!

Don't miss this middle grade fantasy adventure about a boy, a magical tiger, an outlaw dragon, and a mischievous monkey who carry the fate of the world on their shoulders. From two-time Newbery Honor-winning author Laurence Yep (Dragonwings, Dragon's Gate), now with an all-new cover and introduction!

Tom Lee's life changes forever the day he meets a talking tiger named Mr. Hu and discovers that he has magical powers and great responsibilities that he never imagined. Despite his doubts and fears, Tom joins Mr. Hu's ragtag band of creatures in their fight to keep an ancient talisman out of the hands of the worst possible enemy.

This action-packed fantasy from two-time Newbery Honor-winning author Laurence Yep reveals a hidden world within our own where animals take human form, where friendship is the final weapon in the battle between good and evil, and where a young boy is responsible for saving the world he knows . . . and the one he is just discovering.

This updated edition includes an introduction by Laurence Yep!

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

This colorful fantasy seamlessly weaves ancient Chinese mythology into the contemporary city of San Francisco. Twelve-year-old Tom Lee, who lives with his grandmother, arrives home one day to find an old man with furry ears opening his door for him. The man turns out to be a tiger, Tom's grandmother turns out to be a powerful magician guarding a world-changing object, and Tom himself turns out to bear a sudden burden of responsibility. Thrust quickly into a skirmish, Tom barely has time to ask what's going on before he and the tiger are escaping onto the roof with the magical object while his grandmother remains inside to fight monsters. Her death is shocking but helps Tom begin to understand how important the object must be. A phoenix egg disguised as a cheap coral rose; the object holds the power-in the wrong hands-to flood the world with chaos and destruction. Mr. Hu, the tiger, has now become its Guardian, and Tom his apprentice. A dragon, a golden monkey, and a flying yellow rat join their forces, employing both enchantments and wit as their task takes them underwater, underground, and finally into another realm. Chapter-beginning quotations about the relevant Chinese mythology and its creatures give the story a deep, archetypal element. Near the end, Mr. Hu shares his soul to save Tom's life; what Tom will be like as part tiger, and what the monsters will try next to procure the object, must wait for the second entry in this simultaneously gentle and suspenseful series. (afterword) (Fiction. 9-12)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177091631
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	02/02/2021
Series:	Tiger's Apprentice , #1
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

The Tiger's Apprentice

Book 1

---

By Laurence Yep

HarperCollins

ISBN: 0060010134

---

Chapter One

It isn't every day you meet a tiger. And certainly not a tiger in a suit and tie. And definitely not one who knows your first name.

The tiger was the last thing Tom Lee expected as he stumbled up the steps to his grandmother's home.

It was a grand old house in the Inner Richmond of San Francisco. Gingerbread shingles covered its sides like scales, and pigeons cooed under its ornate window eaves. It seemed to have cast some magical spell that protected it and its neighbors from being replaced by the cheap, ugly apartment houses that had swallowed up the rest of the city. However, today, Tom didn't want to admire it. As he hurried up the steps, he just wanted to hide inside - away from all the people staring at the big bruise surrounding one eye and the torn sleeve of his blue shirt.

At the park Jack, an eighth-grader, had called Tom's grandmother a weirdo - which everyone in the neighborhood did because of the way she decorated her house. It was full of magical charms - strange designs on paper, wood, and stone, and words written in a ghostly script. Hanging everywhere were mirrors with trigrams - sets of three lines, either solid or with a gap in the middle - from an ancient book called the Book of Changes. They made up patterns that could tell the future and had magical powers. And incense was always burning before bizarre statues.

When she walked down the street to do her shopping, their non-Chinese neighbors turned and whispered to one another. The Chinese in the area treated her as if she were invisible, and the Chinese shopkeepers were afraid to say a word to her and always waited on her first, as if they were in a hurry to get her out of their shops - not that she cared. She was proud of working magic and was even teaching Tom the rudiments of what she called the Lore.

Unfortunately for Tom, the neighborhood's attitude had filtered down to the children, who stuck Tom with the same label - weirdo. Bullies - Chinese or not - loved to pick on anyone different, and they had made Tom their favorite target. He couldn't ignore an insult slung at his grandmother, who had taken care of him ever since he was a baby. His archaeologist parents had disappeared somewhere in Malaysia when he was only a year old. Everyone, including Tom and his grandmother, assumed they were dead.

Even though he was small for his age and his opponents were usually much larger, he defended his grandmother almost every day, and the frequent fights had earned him his own reputation as a troublemaker. His folder in the school counselor's office was stamped at risk.

So why should today be any different than any other day? Though Jack was an eighth-grader, Tom had demanded he take back his rude words. Of course, Jack wouldn't, and so there had been a fight. The real problem was that Jack had brought pals just as big as he was.

It would have been so much easier if Tom could have turned them into lizards, but his grandmother refused to teach him those spells until she was sure he would not misuse them. So Tom had had to use his fists. Against Jack alone, he might have stood a chance - which Jack knew and was why he had dared insult Tom's grandmother only when he had a gang around him.

"Turning them into lizards is too good for them. Fungus, maybe," Tom said to himself as the steps creaked under his feet. He couldn't wait to get inside the house. It was his fort, strange as it was. Within its walls, he felt safe from the rest of the world. And maybe he'd work on her again to teach him some spells he could use for defending himself.

At the door he fumbled for his key and found he had forgotten it. So he jabbed the doorbell hard. "Please, Grand-mom. Hurry up," he muttered.

When the door opened, though, it was a stranger who greeted him. "Good afternoon, Master Thomas. Your grandmother has been telling me wonderful things about you." The visitor took in the black eye and the torn sleeve and scratched his head. "But I see she might have been exaggerating a tad."

The stranger looked like an elderly man with a trim, gray mustache and goatee - except for his furry ears. The stranger brushed his goatee. "Do I have something on my face? Is that why you're staring?"

Tom's grandmother had taught him some basic spells, and one of them was for showing the true shape of things - which she said was essential for anyone working in magic. Curious about his grandmother's visitor, Tom chanted the words under his breath. He jumped when the next instant he saw a tiger standing there on his hind legs.

In the Chinese folktales his grandmother told him, animals could talk, but he had always thought those were just stories. He'd never expected to meet a talking animal.

"Is that you, Tom?" his grandmother called from the kitchen. "Where have you been?"

Suddenly Tom stood tongue-tied out of shame. He'd been so small when his parents had disappeared that he didn't remember them. Whenever Tom wanted a hug or a kind word, he could always count on his grandmother, but it was her voice he loved best. There was always a smile hidden behind her words. Her voice reminded Tom of a stream chuckling as it ran over rocks. He felt guilty for ducking out of his grandmother's lessons today, especially since he had run into Jack and his gang.

Impatiently the tiger slipped a watch from a pocket in his suit vest and consulted it. "I'd step inside unless you intend to eat on the porch. Mistress Lee, I think you'd better fetch Master Thomas if you don't want him turning into a porch fixture."

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from The Tiger's Apprentice by Laurence Yep
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

---

Videos