How does Laurence Yep use imagery in Child of the Owl: Golden Mountain Chronicles: 1965?

Examples of Imagery:

"Suddenly all the gaudy neon signs were no longer a bunch of words but were like snakes of colored lights crawling up the faces of the buildings and their reflections smashed themselves on the street, looking like broken stars sliding back and forth and trying to put themselves back together."

"If there were invisible walls around Chinatown for Paw-Paw, they were like the walls of a turtle, walls behind which you could remain warm and alive, and for someone like me, those walls didn't have to be any more of a trap than I let them. They could be like something to give me shape and form and when I couldn't grow anymore inside them, I could break out of those invisible walls."