From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8-In present-day rural China, 14-year-old Chu Ju's mother gives birth to her second child, another girl. When her grandmother makes plans to sell the baby, Chu Ju decides to leave home. Perhaps then her family will keep little Hua and her parents will try again for a boy. After finding work on a sampan and becoming like a daughter to the fisherman's wife, she tells her story, and the woman is so horrified that she wants her to return home immediately. Forced to move on once more, the teen ends up in the household of Han Na, whose son wants to leave the rice paddies and go to Shanghai. Here Chu Ju proves her worth, making the paddy more productive using modern techniques she learns from her neighbor and friend Ling, caring for Han Na as she becomes increasingly weak, and rescuing her unfortunate son from jail in the city. Finally, having achieved a sense of self-worth, she goes back to see her family, but only to visit as she has made a life on the land bequeathed to her by Han Na. Whelan skillfully shows the mixture of past and present that is characteristic of rural China. She conveys the feelings of a nation on the brink of change, a country whose young people are trying out new ways of doing things, yet are clear about what traditional values are important to retain.
Barbara Scotto, Michael Driscoll School, Brookline, MACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Gr. 6-9. When Chu Ju is 14 years old, her mother gives birth to a second daughter. Rural China policy restricts families to two children, and when Chu Ju's bitter grandmother convinces the parents to put the new baby up for adoption, leaving space in the family for a possible boy "to care for us in our old age," Chu Ju runs away. She wanders, finding sporadic work and shelter, until she comes upon a loving home with an aging farmer and becomes a skilled farmer herself. As in
Homeless Bird (2000) and
Angel on the Square (2001), Whelan tells a compelling adventure story, filled with rich cultural detail, about a smart, likable teenage girl who overcomes society's gender restrictions. Whelan skillfully weaves in just enough cultural context to support the story, while her atmospheric details bring the green Chinese landscape to life. Most compelling, though, is brave, clearly drawn Chu Ju, whose intelligence and good heart win her land, family respect, and the promise of romance by the story's end.
Gillian EngbergCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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