In a tumble-down house carved out of the dunes lives an old man with second sight. He is the sifter of sands, the man who separates the sparkling mica, black lava, golden-reds, and misty grays. And as he sifts he mesmerizes Jessica and Andrew with his tales of the trickster-creator Raven and how a lonely young man lived to be 300 years old.
Winner of the 1993 Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize, shortlisted for the Silver Birch Award and the CLA Book of the Year Award Jasmine is not sure she likes the idea of being stuck in Victoria while her father goes to China for a year. But on a field trip to Chinatown, she explores a curious shop in Fan Tan Alley and accidentally passes through a hidden door. She finds herself in Victoria’s Chinatown of the late 1880’s. Mistaken for a Chinese boy, she is soon caught up in a race...