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Month: June 2016

  • YA Roundtable

    Though they write in different genres, the four authors are united by an enduring connection to the joys and struggles of young people, which makes their writing ring true. From the recent …

  • Reading the Cultural Revolution

    Contributed by Faye Bi, Senior Publicist,  Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing

    This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution in China, which historians agree took place 1966-1976. Many Western media outlets were quick to provide retrospectives (see: The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, CNN, and The Atlantic), but up until recently, it represented a huge gap in my historical knowledge, despite being born to two Chinese immigrant parents. This colossal historical event that caused nearly 2-30 million deaths (depending on whom you ask) was barely touched on in my formal education; China was nowhere near its current economic prowess when I was a kid, not important enough to be put under the international spotlight until now.

    My parents, who arrived in Canada in 1989 with an infant-me in tow, were tight-lipped about their life in China beforehand. They were born in 1960, young children who came of age during the Cultural Revolution under conditions of which I was blissfully unaware. There were clues, of course—we lived a frugal life on my father’s Ph.D. stipend, and I was taught from an early age not to waste food. Education was highly prized, and my wardrobe was a steady rotation of homemade clothes, knits, and hand-me-downs. And then there were offhand comments, like, “I would have had to work in the countryside if I hadn’t moved to Canada” from my father, or “My parents sent me away as a baby to live with my grandmother” from my mother. I knew my mother had worked in a shoe factory, on her feet for 12 hours a day, which meant our early weekends selling spring rolls at the flea market for extra cash were pittance.

    I suspect my story is not uncommon amongst Chinese immigrants of this time. As I got older, I found it difficult to ask questions, especially if the memories were painful. My attempts were casually brushed aside, with a “there’s a reason we moved—to make a better life for you.” It wasn’t long before I did what I usually do when I’m stuck: turned to a book.

    Ying Chang Compestine’s Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party had been on my radar for a few years. I was wary of adult non-fiction or even adult fiction, given my personal relationship with the subject matter, but Compestine’s slim tome was perfect—inspired by her own life growing up in Wuhan, where my mother has relatives. The book begins with nine-year-old Ling, the daughter of two doctors in the best hospital in Wuhan. She lives a comfortably middle class life, with new dresses in pretty fabrics and occasional treats of chocolate. Her upstairs neighbors have a sewing machine and a water heater. She complains when her mother makes food she doesn’t like; loves learning English from her father and listening to Voice of America; and lives the life of a young girl we wouldn’t find so unfamiliar to our own.

    Then Comrade Li shows up and Ling’s father’s office is cleared out to be transformed into a bedroom for him. Comrade Li’s portrayal is a nuanced one; Compestine certainly depicts him as a villain, but tender conversations between him and Ling include exchanges of origami and eggs, later transforming into Comrade Li basically taking all of the family’s food. Ling begins to hate school when fellow students form a unit of the Red Guards and viciously bully her for her love of dresses and her middle class background, calling her a “bourgeois sympathizer.” The tragedies become more and more frequent: when Ling and her father rescue an intellectual from committing suicide in the river; when Ling and her mother watch Red Guards beat a midwife’s family; when their neighbor, Niu, denounces his family and Ling’s, drawing a class line; and when Ling’s own father is taken away and jailed.

    Compestine does touch on the political events of the time, but she focuses the story on Ling. In a sense, I’m not as interested in what Chairman Mao did or what his motivations were, but how so many lives were irrevocably, irreparably changed. Descriptions of waiting in line with ration tickets hoping for meat; Niu being sent to reeducation camp in the country and trying to escape; Red Guards and comrades trashing Ling’s home;, or just not having enough food. Aside from the violent political struggles by the Red Guards against dissenters, the utmost killer of the Revolution was famine.

    It was a difficult read for me, with heartache and occasional tears, imagining my parents growing up during this time period. Given that the Red Guards were primarily made up of students, Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party’s perspective is rich and harrowing, right at the center of the action. Though I’m sure it doesn’t fully cover its vast scope, I was able to tell my father I’d read a book about the Cultural Revolution. He wanted to talk about the political effects; I wanted to talk about people. It was rough getting him to open up, but he did tell me that he was one of the lucky ones—schools and universities had re-opened by the time he was getting his education. His siblings (my aunts and uncles who were 8-12 years older than him) didn’t have those opportunities. “It set back an entire generation,” he says. “I remember attending school sitting next to students twice my age.”

    Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party has an uplifting ending, though hints at the troubles to come. After Chairman Mao’s death, the political tides turn and Comrade Li is arrested. Ling’s father is released from prison, and her family is reunited. My family has a happy ending as well—and I appreciate every opportunity to learn those stories. I have books to thank for starting the conversation.

    Further Reading

    Chun Yu, Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution

    li Jiang, Red Scarf Girl

    Moying Li, Snow Falling in Spring

    Ying Chang Compestine, Revolution is Not a Dinner Party

    Faye Bi works as a Senior Publicist at Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing and Saga Press, and also volunteers for Sirens, a conference dedicated to women in fantasy literature. She tweets at @faye_bi.

  • YALSA Announces its 2016 Top Ten Summer Learning Programs

    CHICAGO, IL — The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has announced its list of 2016 Top Ten Summer Learning Programs from its Teen Programming HQ contest. The top ten …

  • The CBC Partners with the unPrison Project for Second-Consecutive Year to Build Prison-Nursery Libraries for Incarcerated Mothers and Their Babies

    BRAND-NEW LIBRARIES CREATED IN 20 STATES New York, NY – June 8, 2016 – The Children’s Book Council (CBC) has partnered once again with The unPrison Project — a 501(c)3 …

  • 2016 Lambda Literary Award Winners Announced

    The 2016 Lambda Literary Award winner in the LGBT Children’s/Young Adult category is: George by Alex Gino, Scholastic Press 2016 Finalists: About a Girl: A Novel, Sarah McCarry, St. Martin’s Griffin Anything …

  • #DrawingDiversity: ‘More-igami’ by Dori Kleber, illustrated by G. Brian Karas

    More-igami by Dori Kleber, illustrated by G. Brian Karas (Candlewick Press, May 2016). All rights reserved.

  • 2016 Ned Vizzini Teen Literary Prize Announced

    The first-ever prize was presented on June 7 at the Brooklyn Public Library. The poetry winners were Kat Snoddy, Odelia Fried, and Lucy Berry. The prose winners were Stina Trollbäck, Adil Gondal, and …

  • Reading Is Fundamental Implements Summer Reading Grant Initiative

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), the nation’s largest children’s literacy organization, announced the recipients of a Read for Success grant to promote summer reading, and help improve reading proficiency …

  • Ezra Jack Keats “100th Birthday Blowout Weekend” In June Planned In Brooklyn To Celebrate Centenary Of Late Author-Illustrator

    NEW YORK, June 2, 2016 — In honor of the late children’s author-illustrator Ezra Jack Keats’centenary, the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation is planning an “Ezra Jack Keats’ 100th Birthday Blowout Weekend,” …

  • YA Authors Share Advice for Their Teenage Selves

    Nicola Yoon (Everything, Everything) wishes she’d known as an adolescent that “the answers don’t matter as much as the asking“; Rosalind Jana (Notes on Being Teenage) proclaims that “you are enough as …

  • 11 Leading Educators Announced as Next Group of Heinemann Fellows

    BOSTON, MA – Heinemann, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, today announced the 2016 class of Heinemann Fellows, a select group of accomplished educators who share the goal of advancing the …

  • #DrawingDiversity: ‘A Stick is an Excellent Thing’ illus. by LeUyen Pham

    A Stick is an Excellent Thing: Poems Celebrating Outdoor Play by Marilyn Singer, illustrated by LeUyen Pham (Clarion Books/HMH, February 2012). All rights reserved.

  • Dame Helen Mirren to Narrate Beatrix Potter’s Rediscovered ‘The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots’

    NEW YORK, NY — Award-winning actress Dame Helen Mirren will narrate the recently rediscovered Beatrix Potter story THE TALE OF KITTY-IN-BOOTS (on sale September 6, 2016), her first audiobook recording. …

  • Barnes & Noble Announces 20th Anniversary of Summer Reading Program That Gives Kids Across America the Opportunity to Earn a Free Book

    New York, NY — Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the nation’s largest retail bookseller and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced the 20th …

  • The 2016 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Winners Announced

    June 2, 2016, Boston, MA — The 2016 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winners were announced today by The Boston Globe and The Horn Book in a video presentation that was …

  • Barnes & Noble Announces Harry Potter Countdown to Midnight Parties on July 30 at Stores Nationwide

    New York, NY – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the nation’s largest retail bookseller and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced that it …

  • Character Portraits From The Forthcoming Stage Production of ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ Released

    The first photos of Harry, Ginny and Albus Potter as they will appear in the London stage production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two were …

  • “What’s the Ambassador Reading?”: June 2016

    In the second installment of his series, Yang shares the books that are currently on his reading list: Ninja! by Arree Chung, Orbiting Jupiter by Gary Schmidt, and Patsy Walker A.K.A. Hellcat #5 by Kate …

  • Kate DiCamillo Named National Summer Reading Champion

    As a Summer Reading Champion, DiCamillo hopes to inspire children of all ages to take advantage of all that their local libraries have to offer. Books give me an understanding …

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