Now, before I tell you what I have chosen for her I want to explain to you my philosophy behind reading and the reason I have chosen what I have chosen. I am not trying to trap her into reading what I like, or in studying what I want her to study. I am trying to expand her reading to include things that she might not otherwise have chosen within the bounds of her interests. I have 11 children and they all have their own interests and genres that they prefer. However, excepting the child with the learning disability, they all like to read and most read a lot. So, I have had experiences in a lot of types of books.
So Natalie told me that she had loved reading about Lang Lang and wanted to read more like that. My first questions were, "More like what? Music? Musicians? China? What is it about Lang Lang that you enjoyed?" Through the conversation I realized that she was very curious about China's culture, especially the Cultural Revolution. So, I suggested she read "Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution" by Ji-Li Jiang, "China's Son: Growing Up in the Cultural Revolution" by Da Chen, and "My Name is Number 4: A True Story From the Cultural Revolution" by Ting-Xing Ye.* These books each bring a different perspective to the phenomenon that the Cultural Revolution was. After she read these (one of her own choice between each of mine), we discussed them and I felt that she had a pretty good handle on what happened in China during this time period. She thought so, too, and wanted to see this fascinating country from another point of view.
We had read about Lang Lang, and he is certainly contemporary, but his also a very unique story. It is reading about a celebrity. A celebrity's life is hardly 'ordinary'. I remembered reading a book several years ago that I had checked out of our local library about a more modern Chinese schoolgirl who sacrificed much for her education. This book was published in 2004 and is the story of a contemporary young girl. I couldn't remember the name of the book, though, so I called the librarian. She suggested the books she thought it could be, but none of them sounded like the right one. I got on Amazon and searched for key works, "schoolgirl", "China", and "journalist" because I remembered that a French journalist had discovered this little girl and had been the one to publish her story. Hurray! I love modern technology and I love Amazon Prime. Two days later Natalie was reading "The Diary of Ma Yan: The Struggles and Hopes of a Chinese Schoolgirl" by Ma Yan. This gave her a better perspective of life in China for a rural young girl today. By this point, Natalie was about done with China, but I wanted her to see one more side.
The last book she read on this subject was called "Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze" by Elizabeth Foreman Lewis. Unlike the other books, this one was fiction (a Newberry Medal book). However, it takes place in a China before the Cultural Revolution happened. As a matter of fact, this story takes place in 1920 Chungking. Fung Yu moves from a rural farming village to the 'big city'. I think the book does a good job of portraying the Chinese culture before the Cultural Revolution.
All this said, I am not expert on China; neither is my daughter. Our study has certainly not been exhaustive. But she has a handle on some issues and points of view that she did not have before. She has been introduced to a culture and a way of life that is far outside of her own experience. And, I have tried to give her a balanced picture of this culture from several time periods.
Now she has moved onto the Civil War. I wonder how long it will take her to read "Gone With the Wind".................
*FYI, "My Name is Number 4" is $2.08 new on Amazon.
THANK YOU
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