Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Chun Yu (Author)

Book Description

I was born in a small city near the East Sea,

when the Great Cultural Revolution began.

My name is Little Green,

my country Zhong Guo, the Middle Kingdom.

When I was ten years old,

our leader had died and the revolution ended.

And this is how I remember it.

When Chun Yu was born in a small city in China, she was born into a country in revolution. The streets were filled with roaming Red Guards, the walls were covered with slogans, and reeducation meetings were held in all workplaces. Every family faced danger and humiliation, even the youngest children.

Shortly after Chun's birth, her beloved father was sent to a peasant village in the countryside to be reeducated in the ways of Chairman Mao. Chun and her brother stayed behind with their mother, who taught in a country middle school where Mao's Little Red Book was a part of every child's education. Chun Yu's young life was witness to a country in turmoil, struggle, and revolution -- the only life she knew.

This first-person memoir of a child's view of the Chinese Cultural Revolution is a stunning account of a country in crisis and a testimony to the spirit of the individual -- no matter how young or how innocent.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8–Xiao Qing, or Little Green, was born at the very beginning of the Cultural Revolution, and when she turned 10, Chairman Mao died. Because her father worked in the city before he was sent to the countryside for re-education and her mother taught first in a country school and later in the city, Little Green and her two siblings lived much of their younger years with their grandmother. This memoir, written as poetry, chronicles her daily life and reveals her perceptions of the world. Her story is revealed in snippets, much the way one remembers scenes from the distant past. The earlier poems reflect the emotions and fears of a young child while the later poems show an increasing awareness of the meaning of what is taking place. While poetry is an excellent vehicle for a memoir of this sort, the verse itself is uneven in quality. The author is at her best when describing life in the country where many of her depictions of the natural world are lyrical and full of beauty. The form works less well in the more narrative parts, where the poetry is not far removed from prose. Ji-Li Jiang's Red Scarf Girl (HarperCollins, 1997) and Da Chen's China's Son (Delacorte, 2001) also tell the story of young people living through this era. What makes Little Green slightly different is the younger age of the protagonist and the immediacy of the experience provided by the poetry. As such, it complements and extends those more substantial narratives.–Barbara Scotto, Michael Driscoll School, Brookline, MA

From Booklist

Gr. 7-10. Chun Yu was born in China in 1966, the year the Great Cultural Revolution began, and in spare poetry she remembers the first 10 years of her life. True to a child's bewildered viewpoint and augmented by occasional, small black-and-white family photos, Yu gets across the grief at home and the school indoctrination. She feels her father's depression; plays war games against "Foreign Devils"; hears Mama defend her rich, dead parents; and sees intellectuals sent for "reeducation." Telling one person's story is often a compelling way to introduce politics, but because children won't know much of the history here, they may be frustrated by the vignettes, which provide only glimpses of the national terror and upheaval. A brief epilogue will help by providing some context about growing up "half blind to and half aware of the glory of the cause and the cruelty of the reality." So will pairing this with Ki-li Jiang's Red Scarf Girl (1997) or Ange Zhang's Red Land, Yellow River [BKL D 1 04], also about the cultural revolution Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books (March 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689869436
• ISBN-13: 978-0689869433
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,025,947 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #24 in Books > Children's Books > Education & Reference > Citizenship

More About the Author

Chun Yu is the author of LITTLE GREEN: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, an award-winning memoir published by Simon & Schuster (2005). She is also one of the authors of Veteran of War, Veteran of Peace, an anthology edited by Maxine Hong Kingston (Koa Books, 2006). She is currently working on two books that continue the story of Little Green and a historical graphic novel (to be published by First Second of Roaring Brook Press).

Since the publication of Little Green, Chun Yu lectured in schools, universities, libraries, museums and bookstores around the country about her book and the culture and history of China.

Chun Yu holds a B.S. and M.S. in chemistry from Peking University (Beijing University), a Ph.D. in biomaterials from Rutgers University, she was granted a postdoctoral fellowship in biomedical engineering by Harvard University-Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Division of Health Science and Technology.
Yu worked as a medical researcher before the publication of her first book.

LITTLE GREEN has won the following awards and recognitions:
1. The Parents' Choice Award 2005
2. Voice of Young Advocates' Poetry Picks 2005
3. Society of School Librarians International Book Award Honor Book 2006
4. Best Book Award honorable mention by Chinese American Librarians' Association 2006
5. New York Public Library's Books for Teen Age 2006
6. Notable Social Studies Trade Book by the National Council of Social Studies (NCSS) and the Children's
Book Council (CBC) 2006
7. International Reading Association (IRA) Children's Book Award Notable 2007
8. California Collections by California Readers 2007

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully written story - not just for young readers, March 25, 2005

By 

Michael Shapiro (Sebastopol, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Hardcover)

It's one thing to read the history of China's Cultural Revolution, quite another to see it through the eyes of a little girl who lived through it. In "Little Green," Chun Yu, born the year the Cultural Revolution began (1966), chronicles the first ten years of her life, from the revolution's inception to its ending with Mao's death.

What's startling about "Little Green" - the title comes from Yu's childhood nickname - is not just the vivid clarity of her memories but the beauty of her words. Written in verse, the book has the crystalline luminosity of Peter Matthiessen's prose and David Whyte's poetry. On one page Yu will speak eloquently of the gift of a blue silk ribbon; on another she'll share her pain - without being overly sentimental - at having her family's garden torn out after the state decided that private gardens were capitalistic.

"After a whole spring and early summer
of planting and watering,
the tomatoes were just starting to ripen under the green leaves.
Some melon flowers were still blooming on the fence.
The biggest melons had grown to the size of my little fists.
The sunflowers along the roadside
were only a couple of feet tall,
with tender yellow flowers following the sun around.
Nainai [Grandma] sighed.
'It hurts the conscience to destroy these crops.
What crime did the plants commit?' "

In this slender volume, Yu shows how her family is affected by the Cultural Revolution. Her mother, a teacher, becomes a target of the anti-intellectual movement; her father is sent for several years to a reeducation camp. In "We Saw Baba Only Twice a Year," Yu writes:

"Baba lived in May Seventh Cadre School,
where he was being reeducated.
The cadre school could only be reached by boat,
slowly moved by a long bamboo stick.
It took a whole day each way.
We saw Baba only twice a year,
in the summertime
and Chinese New Year.
After not seeing him for a long time,
it felt so strange to call him 'Baba' again."

The cover quote, from Maxine Hong Kingston, calls "Little Green" a "miracle" which initially sounded a bit over the top. But as I read the book and learned Yu's story, I didn't find this to be an exaggeration. For someone who learned English as an adult and spent much of her time in this country studying science, "Little Green," written with elegant simplicity in English, truly is miraculous.

I found "Little Green" so enjoyable that I began rationing it, reading just a few pages a night, to make it last. Thankfully, this is the first book of a trilogy, and Yu says she's already finished the second volume. I'll eagerly await its publication. Until then, I'll return often to Little Green's clear, bright lines.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for all ages, March 17, 2005

By 

whirled traveler (SF, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Hardcover)

I really enjoyed reading Chun Yu's "Little Green." It gives a unique perspective of the Chinese cultural revolution from a young child's view, but at the same time explores very mature themes of cultural and personal identity. As a student of history, this book gave me a new understanding of the crazy times of the cultural revolution -- while creating a sense of beauty and wonder through the free verse structure of the book. I'd highly recommend it.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Little Green is a wondrous work of art!, March 20, 2005

By 

Michael Wong - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Hardcover)

Little Green is a wondrous work of art, like an ancient Chinese painting brought forward into modern time. Where a Western painter might fill up the entire canvas with paint, traditional Chinese painters used sparse brush strokes to vividly illuminate the very essence of their subject. So does Chun Yu use her poetry to bring to life the world of a ten year old child in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Like the unfolding of a Chinese scroll, to read her verse is to journey across the landscape of that time. We see her family, other children, revolutionaries and "counter-revolutionaries," political struggle meetings, war trainings, cold streams, warm meals, forbidden ancient poetry, and the sound of snowflakes falling past her ear.

Little Green is suitable for all ages, both children and adults. From her readings in the San Francisco bay area, I also learned that this book is the first in a coming trilogy. I give it five stars.