Earthquake - Tapa blanda

This morning the earth shook
and threw us from our beds.
We were not hurt, just stunned.
Drawers spilled, dishes crashed,
pots and pans clanged as
they fell.
Ancestral portraits flew off
the walls.

Milly Lee's mother was eight years old in 1906, when San Francisco was shaken by a powerful earthquake. Buildings fell, fires flared, and the city burned for several days.

This is the stirring story of one Chinese American family who had to leave their home in Chinatown on that early morning to join hundreds of other refugees making their way to safety.

MILLY LEE is the author of Nim and the War Effort. She grew up in San Francisco's Chinatown and went back to college after her children were grown to earn degrees from the University of San Francisco and the University of California at Berkeley. She has been a school librarian and was the Sonoma County Office of Education Librarian until her retirement. She and her husband live in Santa Rosa, California.

YANGSOOK CHOI came to the United States as an art student and earned a master of fine arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She grew up in Seoul, South Korea, and graduated from Sang Myoung University there. She has illustrated many books for children, including her own New Cat and Nim and the War Effort by Milly Lee. She lives in New York City.