The Big Read 2012 - Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club
Supplemental Materials List
General | Young Adult | Films
General
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery. (1989)
Other Books by Amy Tan:
The Kitchen God’s Wife. Fans of Tan's Joy Luck Club will love her powerful second novel. Here she creates an absorbing story about the lives of a Chinese mother and her adult American-born daughter. Pressured to reveal to the young woman her secret past in war-torn China in the 1940s, Winnie weaves an unbelievable account of a childhood of loneliness and abandonment and a young adulthood marred by a nightmarish arranged marriage. Winnie survives her many ordeals because of the friendship and strength of her female friends, the love of her second husband, and her own steadfast courage and endurance. At the conclusion, her secrets are uncovered and she shares a trust/love relationship with her daughter, Pearl, that was missing from both their lives. (1991)
The Hundred Secret Senses. Olivia, the narrator of this story, was born to an American mother and a Chinese father. She meets her 18-year-old Chinese half sister, Kwan, for the first time shortly after their father's death. Kwan adores "Libby-ah" and tries to introduce her to her Chinese heritage through stories and memories. Olivia is embarrassed by her sibling, but finds as she matures that she has inadvertently absorbed much about Chinese superstitions, spirits, and reincarnation. Olivia explains, "My sister Kwan believes she has Yin eyes. She sees those who have died and now dwell in the World of Yin..."
Now in her mid-30s, Olivia, a photographer, is still seeking a meaningful life. The climax of the story comes when she and her estranged husband Simeon, a writer, go to China on assignment with Kwan as the interpreter. In the village in which she grew up, Kwan returns to the world of Yin, her mission completed. Olivia finally learns what Kwan was trying to show her: "If people we love die, then they are lost only to our ordinary senses. If we remember, we can find them anytime with our hundred secret senses." (1995)
The Bonesetter’s Daughter. In its rich character portrayals and sensitivity to the nuances of mother-daughter relationships, this novel is the real successor to, and equal of, The Joy Luck Club. This luminous and gripping book demonstrates enhanced tenderness and wisdom, however; it carries the texture of real life and reflects the paradoxes historical events can produce. Ruth Young is a 40-ish ghostwriter in San Francisco who periodically goes mute, a metaphorical indication of her inability to express her true feelings to the man she lives with, Art Kamen, a divorced father of two teenage daughters. Ruth's inability to talk is subtly echoed in the story of her mother LuLing's early life in China, which forms the long middle section of the novel. Overbearing, accusatory, darkly pessimistic, LuLing has always been a burden to Ruth. Now, at 77, she has Alzheimer's, but luckily she had recorded in a diary the extraordinary events of her childhood and youth in a small village in China during the years that included the discovery nearby of the bones of Peking Man, the Japanese invasion, the birth of the Republic and the rise of Communism. LuLing was raised by a nursemaid called Precious Auntie, the daughter of a famous bonesetter. Tan conjures both settings with resonant detail, juxtaposing scenes of rural domestic life in a China still ruled by superstition and filial obedience, and of upscale California half a century later. The novel exhibits a poignant clarity as it investigates the dilemma of adult children who must become caretakers of their elderly parents, a situation Tan articulates with integrity and exemplary empathy for both generations. (2001)
The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings. Tan begins this collection of essays that spans her literary career, on a humorous note; she is troubled that her life and novels have become the subject of a "Cliff’s Notes" abridgement. Reading the little yellow booklet, she discovers that her work is seen as complex and rich with symbolism. However, Tan assures her readers that she has no lofty, literary intentions in writing her novels--she writes for herself, and insists that the recurring patterns and themes that critics find in them are entirely their own making. This self-deprecating stance, coupled with Tan’s own clarification of her intentions, makes The Opposite of Fate feel like an extended, private conversation with the author. (2003)
Saving Fish from Drowning. Tan delivers another highly entertaining novel, this one narrated from beyond the grave. San Francisco socialite and art-world doyenne Bibi Chen has planned the vacation of a lifetime along the notorious Burma Road for 12 of her dearest friends. Violently murdered days before takeoff, she's reduced to watching her friends bumble through their travels from the remove of the spirit world. Making the best of it, the 11 friends who aren't hung over depart their Myanmar resort on Christmas morning to boat across a misty lake—and vanish. The tourists find themselves trapped in jungle-covered mountains, held by a refugee tribe that believes Rupert, the group's surly teenager, is the reincarnation of their god Younger White Brother, come to save them from the unstable, militaristic Myanmar government. Tan's travelers, who range from a neurotic hypochondriac to the debonair, self-involved host of a show called The Fido Files, fight and flirt among themselves. While ensemble casting precludes the intimacy that characterizes Tan's mother-daughter stories, the book branches out with a broad plot and dynamic digressions. It's based on a true story, and Tan seems to be having fun with it, indulging in the wry, witty voice of Bibi while still exploring her signature questions of fate, connection, identity and family. (2005)
Coming soon:
The Valley of Amazement. In a press release, Tan said of the novel,”A painting called the ‘Valley of Amazement’ is passed along through three generations of women of the same family. Despite vast differences in their upbringing, culture and circumstances, each of the women is drawn to discover the meaning of the painting and the unknown histories of their mothers.” (2012)
Other Novels:
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. Published in 1931 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1932. The story of family life in a Chinese village before World War II. His father gives Wang Lung a freed slave as wife. This new bride, O-Lan, brings luck into his life. Not only does she bear him a son, he soon makes enough money from his harvest to buy a bit more land. By diligence and frugality the two manage to enlarge their property. But then a famine forces them to leave their land and live in the town. Forced to relocate to the city when famine sets in, it is O-Lan that unexpectedly finds their fortune giving them the opportunity to return to the land that Wang holds so dear. With his new-found wealth however, Wang also decides to take a much younger and prettier second wife and again, his fortunes seem to change. It is only at the end that he realizes how important O-Lan was to the good life he has led. The novel helped prepare Americans of the 1930s to consider Chinese as allies in the coming war with Japan.
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. Adult/High School. Henry Lee is a 12-year-old Chinese boy who falls in love with Keiko Okabe, a 12-year-old Japanese girl, while they are scholarship students at a prestigious private school in World War II Seattle. Henry hides the relationship from his parents, who would disown him if they knew he had a Japanese friend. His father insists that Henry wear an "I am Chinese" button everywhere he goes because Japanese residents of Seattle have begun to be shipped off by the thousands to relocation centers. This is an old-fashioned historical novel that alternates between the early 1940s and 1984, after Henry's wife Ethel has died of cancer. A particularly appealing aspect of the story is young Henry's fascination with jazz and his friendship with Sheldon, an older black saxophonist just making a name for himself in the many jazz venues near Henry's home. Other aspects of the story are more typical of the genre: the bullies that plague Henry, his lack of connection with his father, and later with his own son. Readers will care about Henry as he is forced to make decisions and accept circumstances that separate him from both his family and the love of his life. (Jamie Ford will be at Summer Fishtrap 2012)
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok. When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. Disguising the more difficult truths of her life-like the staggering degree of her poverty, the weight of her family's future resting on her shoulders, or her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition-Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but also herself back and forth between the worlds she straddles.
Lisa See novels with similar Chinese history and Chinese/American themes as Amy Tan:
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel (2005)
Peony in Love: A Novel (2008)
Shanghai Girls: A Novel (2010)
Dreams of Joy: A Novel (2011)
Typical American by Gish Jen. Like Amy Tan and Timothy Mo, Jen's delightful first novel follows the hopeful lives of Chinese immigrants with a great deal of humor and sympathy. As foreign students in New York, Ralph Chang, "Older Sister" Teresa and Ralph's future wife Helen become trapped in the United States when the Communists assume control of China in 1948. Banding together, the three of them innocently plan to achieve the American dream, while retaining their Chinese values. Predictably, just when they appear to have reached their goal, the lures of freedom prove too great. Ralph's greed leads him to sacrifice his family's security to build Ralph's Chicken Palace, while Teresa and Helen find their own passions ignited in illicit ways. Inevitably, the family--the Chinese symbol of unity--suffers more than a few cracks along the way. This is truly "an American story"--a poignant and deftly told tale of immigrants coming to terms with the possibilities of America and with their own limitations, foibles, and the necessity of forgiveness.
Non-Fiction
A Little Too Much Is Enough by Kathleen Tyau. (Oregon author and former Fishtrap Fellow). Mahi is the young protagonist in Tyau's warmly rendered novel featuring a delightful (and vast) Chinese-Hawaiian clan living on the island of Oahu. Tyau tells her tale in a series of vignettes that occur after World War II, developing a vivid, enveloping portrait of the girl's formative years surrounded by a loving group of uncles and aunts, grandparents, siblings, and devoted parents. Each family member contributes a valuable link to precious traditions that will shape the adult Mahi is destined to become. Tyau's sparkling dialogue reveals the cadences of a spoken English influenced by both the Hawaiian and Chinese languages, especially when depicting rituals revolving around the preparation of food. Even though the experience is vicarious, it is still satisfying to share the lively meals in Tyau's often poignant narrative.
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston. The author grew up in two worlds. There was "solid America," the place her parents emigrated to, and the China of her mother's "talk-stories." In talk-stories women were warriors and her mother was still a doctor in China who could cure the sick and scare away ghosts, not a harried and frustrated woman running a stifling Laundromat in California. But what is story and what is truth? In China, a ghost is a supernatural being; in America it is anyone who is not Chinese. In addition, underlying even the most exciting talk-stories of Chinese women warriors is the real oppression of Chinese women: "There is a Chinese word for the female 'I' - which is 'slave.' “In an attempt to figure out her world, Maxine Hong Kingston finds herself creating stories of her own, filling in the blanks her mother has not told her because her daughter is, after all, not true Chinese and thus cannot be completely trusted. Can these new stories explain why she had trouble speaking in the American schools? Can they help her understand the aunt who committed adultery and whose existence is denied? The new stories refuse to fall into traditional forms, and the realizations that come from them often bring out a beautiful, passionate anger that practically burns through the pages. This is powerful, experimental writing, a combination of love, hate, frustration, and sheer beauty.
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. Chua imparts the secret behind the stereotypical Asian child's phenomenal success: the Chinese mother. Chua promotes what has traditionally worked very well in raising children: strict, Old World, uncompromising values--and the parents don't have to be Chinese. What they are, however, are different from what she sees as indulgent and permissive Western parents: stressing academic performance above all, never accepting a mediocre grade, insisting on drilling and practice, and instilling respect for authority. Chua and her Jewish husband (both are professors at Yale Law) raised two girls, and her account of their formative years achieving amazing success in school and music performance proves both a model and a cautionary tale. Sophia, the eldest, was dutiful and diligent, leapfrogging over her peers in academics and as a Suzuki piano student; Lulu was also gifted, but defiant, who excelled at the violin but eventually balked at her mother's pushing. Chua's efforts "not to raise a soft, entitled child" will strike American readers as a little scary--removing her children from school for extra practice, public shaming and insults, equating Western parenting with failure--but the results, she claims somewhat glibly in this frank, unapologetic report card, "were hard to quarrel with."
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang. Bursting with drama, heartbreak and horror, this extraordinary family portrait mirrors China's century of turbulence. Chang's grandmother, Yu-fang, had her feet bound at age two and in 1924 was sold as a concubine to Beijing's police chief. Yu-fang escaped slavery in a brothel by fleeing her "husband" with her infant daughter, Bao Qin, Chang's mother-to-be. Growing up during Japan's brutal occupation, free-spirited Bao Qin chose the man she would marry, a Communist Party official slavishly devoted to the revolution. In 1949, while he drove 1000 miles in a jeep to the southwestern province where they would do Mao's spadework, Bao Qin walked alongside the vehicle, sick and pregnant (she lost the child). Chang, born in 1952 (the same year as Amy Tan), saw her mother put into a detention camp in the Cultural Revolution and later "rehabilitated." Her father was denounced and publicly humiliated; his mind snapped, and he died a broken man in 1975. Working as a "barefoot doctor" with no training, Chang saw the oppressive, inhuman side of communism. She left China in 1978 and is now director of Chinese studies at London University. Her meticulous, transparent prose radiates an inner strength.
Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory by Peter Hessler. There is, as everyone knows, no place in the world changing as fast, and at such scale, as China. Accounts of the upheaval can be breathless and even alarming. Hessler takes to the roads, as so many Chinese are doing now for the first time, driving on dirt tracks to the desert edges of the ancient empire and on brand-new highways to the mushrooming factory towns of the globalized boom. He's modest but intrepid--having taken to heart the national philosophy that it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission--and an utterly enjoyable guide, with a humane and empathetic eye for the ambitions, the failures, and the comedy of a country in which everybody, it seems, is on the move, and no one is quite sure of the rules.
Ancestral Leaves: A Family Journey through Chinese History by Joseph Esherick. Ancestral Leaves follows one family through six hundred years of Chinese history and brings to life the epic narrative of the nation, from the fourteenth century through the Cultural Revolution. The lives of the Ye family--"Ye" means "leaf" in Chinese--reveal the human side of the large-scale events that shaped modern China: the vast and destructive rebellions of the nineteenth century, the economic growth and social transformation of the republican era, the Japanese invasion during World War II, and the Cultural Revolution under the Chinese Communists. Joseph W. Esherick draws from rare manuscripts and archival and oral history sources to provide an uncommonly personal and intimate glimpse into Chinese family history, illuminating the changing patterns of everyday life during rebellion, war, and revolution.
Colors of the Mountain by Da Chen. Now a writer living in New York, Da Chen describes his youth in mainland China with engaging humor and affecting warmth. It's often a harrowing tale: born in 1962, Chen was the grandson of a landlord, which rendered his entire family pariahs during the Cultural Revolution. And though initially an excellent student, he was ostracized in school and told he could never attend college. He responded by making friends with a group of young thugs who drank, smoked, and gambled but were kind to him. After Mao died in 1976, the budding juvenile delinquent discovered that higher education might be available to him after all. Chen worked hard to make up for years of neglected studies. Chen's lucid yet emotional prose unsparingly portrays a topsy-turvy society where unfairness reigns and the rules are arbitrarily changed without warning, but his zest for life and sharp eye for character make even the most awful moments grimly funny.
Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah. Snow White's stepmother looks like a pussycat compared to the monster under which Adeline Yen Mah suffered. The author's memoir of life in mainland China and--after the 1949 revolution--Hong Kong is a gruesome chronicle of nonstop emotional abuse from her wealthy father and his beautiful, cruel second wife. Chinese proverbs scattered throughout the text pithily covey the traditional world view that prompted Adeline's subservience. Had she not escaped to America, where she experienced a fulfilling medical career and a happy marriage, her story would be unbearable; instead, it's grimly fascinating.
Books of Local Historical Relevance:
Massacred for Gold: The Chinese in Hells Canyon by Gregory Nokes. In 1887, more than thirty Chinese gold miners were massacred on the Oregon side of Hells Canyon, the deepest canyon in North America. Massacred for Gold, the first authoritative account of the unsolved crime, unearths the evidence that points to an improbable gang of rustlers and schoolboys, one only fifteen, as the killers.
The crime was discovered weeks after it happened, but no charges were brought for nearly a year, when gang member Frank Vaughan, son of a well-known settler family, confessed and turned state’s evidence. Six men and boys, all from northeastern Oregon’s remote Wallowa County, were charged—but three fled, and the others were found innocent by a jury that a witness admitted had little interest in convicting anyone. A cover-up followed, and the crime was all but forgotten for the next one hundred years, until a county clerk in Wallowa County found hidden records in an unused safe.
Massacred for Gold traces the author’s long personal journey to expose details of the massacre and its aftermath and to understand how one of the worst of the many crimes committed by whites against Chinese laborers in the American West was for so long lost to history.
Deep Creek by Dana Hand. The 1887 massacre of more than 30 Chinese gold miners in a remote area of the Idaho territory provides the real-life foundation for this engrossing look at racial prejudice and the settling of the West, the first novel from Hand (the pen name for William Howarth and Anne Matthews). After police judge Joe Vincent and his 10-year-old daughter, Nell, find a body while fishing, more brutally mutilated bodies turn up along the Snake River. The Sam Yup Company, a Chinese labor exchange, hires Vincent to find the culprits. Lee Loi, an ambitious investigator, and Grace Sundown, a Métis mountain guide who shares a past with Vincent, join the hunt. The three track a murderous crew through remote canyons and towns. The plot soon evolves into an insightful look at how Chinese immigrants and American Indians became the targets of rage and violence. The subsequent capture and trial of the killers illustrate that how the West was won was neither simple nor fair to minorities.
China Doctor of John Day, Oregon by Jeffrey Barlow and Christine Richardson. The remarkable story of Ing Hay, the "China Doctor" who became the most famous and capable frontier physician in the John Day country of Eastern Oregon. Serving patients from the late 19th century to 1948, he was a traditional Chinese physician who, with his herbal medicines, worked more cures than the laboratory-oriented doctors of the area. Illustrated.
Children and Young Adult Supplemental Book List
By Amy Tan, illustrated by Gretchen Shields:
The Moon Lady. Grades 4-6. This is a reworking of a story from the author's adult novel, The Joy Luck Club. Here it is set in the frame of a grandmother regaling her three granddaughters on a rainy afternoon with a tale from her childhood. On the evening of the Moon Festival, she is separated from her family, and goes through several fascinating and scary adventures until she is finally reunited with them. Tan has a good tale here; it is told from the child's point of view; at beginning and ending, the grandmother's voice is used. The illustrations are an integral part of this version and are extremely detailed, providing both accurate cultural detail of the period (the tale is set somewhere in the two decades after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, i.e., the 1920s or '30s) and a child's romantic imaginings. A successful collaboration of compelling text and absorbing illustrations that will make young readers crave more.
Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat. Grades K-3. A Siamese cat tells her children about their "great ancestor, Sagwa of China." That feline started off as a mischievous, pearl-white kitten who lived with her parents in the house of a greedy, autocratic magistrate. Her penchant for trouble lands her in a pot of ink, which stains her paws, nose, ears, and tail. The accident starts a chain of events that leads to the magistrate's tearful reformation, as well as to generations of cats that look Siamese but are actually Chinese. (2001)
The Golden Mountain Chronicles by Laurence Yep: Grades 6-10.
With the first books published in the 1970s, and the most recent book published within the past 10 years, Yep follows the Young family from China to America as they live throughout American history.
Listed in chronological order of each book’s setting, here are relevant immigration stories:
The Serpent’s Children. In 1849, 8 year-old Cassia Young’s family fights the Manchus. Her little brother Foxfire leaves to find his fortune in Gold Mountain America.
Mountain Light. In 1856, Squeaky Lau’s family is in the middle of a feud with Cassia Youngs’s family, but when the two actually meet, they develop a romantic friendship. To prove himself, Squeaky leaves China and travels to America.
Dragon’s Gate. In 1867, Cassia’s adopted son Otter follows his uncle Firefox to California to help build the transcontinental railroad during the worst winter possible.
Dragonwings. Grades 4-7. Laurence Yep's Newbery Honor book offers insights into the lives of Chinese-Americans in early 20th century (1903) California. The story begins as eight-year-old Moon Shadow Lee journeys across the Pacific to join his proud and clever father at the family-owned laundry in San Francisco. The boy recounts their problems with prejudice, as well as the kindness of uncles and cousins. Father and son must leave the protection of the family to move out of Chinatown, but they find refuge with a generous and friendly landlady. Once they have successfully established a repair business, they turn their attention to making a flying machine. Though it's a modern invention, part of their motivation is the elder's belief in his own previous dragon existence. Yep draws heavily on his own heritage, but also includes figures such as Teddy Roosevelt and the Wright Brothers, and historic events such as the San Francisco Earthquake. The result is a heartwarming story set in a familiar time and place, but told from a new perspective.
Laurence Yep’s following novels feature American-born Chinese protagonists, though immigration stories are significant themes in the books as well. Here they are as part of the Golden Mountain Chronicles:
The Traitor. In 1865, Otter’s Chinese American son Joseph meets and befriends while American Michael Purdy in a Wyoming mining town. Told from the perspectives of both boys.
Child of the Owl. In 1965, amznJQ.onReady('bylinePopover', function () {}); twelve-year-old Casey is waiting for the day that Barney, her father, hits it big “cause when that horse comes in,” he tells her, “it's the penthouse suite.” But then he ends up in the hospital, and Casey is sent to Chinatown to live with her grandmother, Paw-Paw. Now the waiting seems longer than ever. Casey feels lost in Chinatown. She's not prepared for the Chinese school, the noisy crowds, missing her father. But Paw-Paw tells her about the mother Casey never knew, and about her family's owl charm and her true Chinese name. And Casey at last begins to understand that this -- Paw-Paw's Chinatown home, her parents' home -- is her home, too.
Sea Glass. In 1970, Craig Chin’s family moves from San Francisco’s Chinatown to the small town of Conception, California, where he faces intolerance.
Thief of Hearts. In 1995, half Chinese American, half white, all American Stacy, Casey’s daughter, lives in a San Francisco suburb and is forced to confront her Chinese heritage when her parents ask her to befriend a newly immigrated Chinese schoolmate.
In The Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao. Grades 3–6. Ten-year-old Bandit is excited when her grandfather announces to the family that she will be going with her mother to join her father in America. She must leave her clan and the only life she has known in China, but she is sure that moving to America will be an adventure. To celebrate, she chooses a new name—Shirley Temple Wong. Life in America is not easy because everything is new and Shirley doesn't speak English. She is ignored by her classmates until she gains the respect of the toughest girl in class. Shirley learns to love baseball and begins to play stickball. It's 1947, and Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers is everyone's hero, proving that a black man can play baseball as well as anyone. Slowly Shirley learns about the opportunities available to her in America and begins to make true friends. Bette Bao Lord's wonderfully humorous story shows what it means to be an American from the eyes of a spunky young immigrant.
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. Grades 3-6. Living in the shadow of the Fruitless Mountain, Minli and her parents spend their days working in the rice fields, barely growing enough to feed themselves. Every night, Minli's father tells her stories about the Jade Dragon that keeps the mountain bare, the greedy and mean Magistrate Tiger, and the Old Man of the Moon who holds everyone's destiny. Determined to change her family's fortune, Minli sets out to find the Old Man of the Moon, urged on by a talking goldfish who gives her clues to complete her journey. Along the way she makes new friends including a flightless dragon and an orphan and proves her resourcefulness when she tricks a group of greedy monkeys and gets help from a king. Interwoven with Minli's quest are tales told by her father and by those she meets on the way. The author's writing is elegant, and her full-color illustrations are stunning. Newbury Honor Book.
Missee Lee: The Swallows and Amazons in the China Seas by Arthur Ransome. Grades 4-6. The original cast of the famed Swallows and Amazons series is sailing under the stars and the command of Captain Flint in the South China Sea when Gibbet, their pet monkey, grabs the captain's cigar and drops it in the fuel tank. In minutes, the ship is ablaze (and doomed), and our seven luckless protagonists are adrift in two small boats. They make their way to land, only to find themselves the captives of one of the last remaining pirates operating off the China Coast. But Missee Lee, as it turns out, is no ordinary pirate; her father had sent her off to Cambridge University to prepare her for a life as a teacher. But when her father takes ill and dies, she finds herself struggling to hold together the Three Island Confederation (Tiger, Turtle, and Dragon) he had created, and to be recognized as his legitimate heir and ruler of the Island Kingdom. Ransome is, as always, the consummate storyteller. Here he takes the reader not only on the usual sailing adventures and cliff-hanging escapades, but also into Chinese culture.
Seeing Emily by Joyce Lee Wong. Grades 6-9. In free verse, 16-year-old Emily Wu, a talented artist, describes her daily life as she interacts with her Chinese immigrant parents; with her best friends, Ninaand Liz; and with her first boyfriend, Nick. In the process, she lies to her parents, experiments with makeup, and, little by little, loses her values. Readers will smell the aromas of the traditional dishes that her mother cooks, see the vibrant colors of the mural she paints, and relate to the discussions she and her friends have about grades, parents, and boys. They will also sense Baba and Mama's concern when they decide to send Emily to visit her aunt in Taiwan, where she comes to the realization that she can be both Chinese and American. Rich in language and imagery.
American Born Chineseby Gene Luen Yang. YA. As alienated kids go, Jin Wang is fairly run-of-the-mill: he eats lunch by himself in a corner of the schoolyard, gets picked on by bullies and jocks and develops a sweat-inducing crush on a pretty classmate. And, oh, yes, his parents are from Taiwan. This much-anticipated, affecting story about growing up different is more than just the story of a Chinese-American childhood; it's a fable for every kid born into a body and a life they wished they could escape. The fable is filtered through some very specific cultural icons: the much-beloved Monkey King, a figure familiar to Chinese kids the world over, and a buck-toothed amalgamation of racist stereotypes named Chin-Kee. True to its origin as a Web comic, this story's clear, concise lines and expert coloring are deceptively simple yet expressive. Even when Yang slips in an occasional Chinese ideogram or myth, the sentiments he's depicting need no translation. Yang accomplishes the remarkable feat of practicing what he preaches with this book: accept who you are and you'll already have reached out to others.
Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale by Belle Yang. YA. Children's book illustrator-author Yang neatly layers family history across several generations in this graphic memoir. Returning to her parents in China in the wake of a stalking ex-boyfriend's threats, she attends to teasing out the details of family stories she has often heard but never deeply asked about. She wants to know how her grandfather's family dynamics during his youth echoed down the generations, the effects of Mao on the family's social as well as economic fortunes, the roles women have played and been denied traditionally, and her own father's progressive and loving attitudes. This is an excellent book for those intrigued by family stories or by the history of twentieth-century China as well as anyone who likes memoirs made more dynamic by incorporating more than just the writer's perspective on events.
Memoir
Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-Li Jiang. Grades 5-9. A child's nightmare unfolds in Jiang's chronicle of the excesses of Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution in China in the late 1960s. She was a young teenager at the height of the fervor, when children rose up against their parents, students against teachers, and neighbor against neighbor in an orgy of doublespeak, name-calling, and worse. Intelligence was suspect, and everyone was exhorted to root out the ``Four Olds'' -- old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits. In the name of the revolution, homes were searched and possessions taken or destroyed, her father imprisoned, and her mother's health imperiled -- until the next round of revolutionaries came in and reversed many of the dicta of the last. Jiang's last chapter details her current life in this country, and the fates of people she mentions in her story. It's a very painful, very personal- -therefore accessible—history.
Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies) by Justina Chen Headley. YA. In a wisecracking, first-person narrative, half-Taiwanese Patty Ho calls herself "a Freakinstein cobbled together from Asian and white DNA." The 15-year-old feels as uncomfortable at school as she does at home, where her domineering Taiwanese mother subjects her to installments of the "Mama Lecture Series"--one of which ends in horrified Patty's enrollment in Stanford Math Camp. To her surprise, she actually likes the brainy, spirited campers, who encourage her to celebrate her hapa (half-Asian) background and spur awakenings about her intellect. Through a supportive aunt who lives near the camp, Patty also comes to a richer understanding of her tough but loving single parent. Patty's contemporary, immediate thoughts about finding direction and relating to family have universal resonance, while her specific struggles will speak directly to biracial teens.
*Book summaries taken from Amazon.com. Compiled by Elizabeth Oliver and Ellen De Young.
Supplemental Film List
During The Big Read, the following films will be shown at Wallowa City Hall, Lear's Main Street Grill in Enterprise, and R & R in Joseph,
Mondays @ 7 PM. Most are available on Netflix if you miss one.
Jan 9 - King of Masks (1999) Nearing the end of his life, Wang -- a locally renowned street performer and wizard of the venerable art of mask magic -- yearns to pass on his technique. But custom decrees that he can only hand down his craft to a male successor. Anxious to preserve his unique art, the heirless Wang buys an impoverished 8-year-old on the black market. But when the child divulges a dreaded secret, Wang faces a choice between filial love and societal tradition. TV-14. (101 min.) Subtitled.
Jan 16 - Not One Less (1999) When teacher Gao leaves town for a month, 13-year-old Wei is pressed into serving as his substitute at the school. If she keeps her class intact, she will receive a bonus. But when a student leaves for the city, she follows and strives relentlessly to bring him back. Rated G. (106 min.) Subtitled.
Jan 23 - Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) Distracted by their complicated love lives and secret ambitions, three adult sisters reluctantly humor their widower father by enduring the elaborate, traditional Taiwanese dinners he insists on having every Sunday. Not rated. (124 min.) Subtitled.
Jan 30 - Thousand Pieces of Gold (1991) In the late 1800’s Lalu, a poor Chinese woman, is sold into marriage in America. She’s sent to a tough Idaho mining town where saloon owner and fellow countryman, Hong King wants her to work as a prostitute. When Lalu refuses she attracts the attention of King’s partner, Charlie. Based on a true story. PG-13. (105 min.) (Not available on Netflix)
Feb 6 - The Joy Luck Club (1993) View the feature film on the big screen. Based on the novel by Amy Tan, Wayne Wang's drama follows four Chinese women living in California, who gather weekly to play mahjong and share stories about their lives and their daughters’ lives, while lamenting some of the younger generation’s choices. Rated R. (139 min.) (At The OK Theatre only)
Other Recommended Films
The following films, all available on Netflix, would make for good viewing with friends:
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2007) Director Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club) returns to his indie roots with this moving film about an older Chinese man who comes to America to visit the recently divorced daughter he barely knows. Making unwelcome efforts to become closer with his daughter, Mr. Shi snoops through her belongings and forces her into uncomfortable conversations in an attempt to piece together why her marriage fell apart. Not rated. (83 min.)
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2002) In the midst of China's Cultural Revolution, college students Ma and Luo are sent to a Maoist rehabilitation camp in a remote mountain village to be purged of their Westernized education. Not rated. (106 min.) Subtitled.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Potent performances from Yun-Fat Chow, Michelle Yeoh and newcomer Zhang Ziyi give heft to this story about a young woman in ancient China who longs for an adventurous life rather than a dull arranged marriage. Ang Lee's articulate direction, coupled with Woo-Ping Yuen's (The Matrix) balletic martial arts choreography, makes for a devastating one-two punch -- and the treetop fight scene is not to be missed. PG 13. (120 min.)
Eat a Bowl of Tea (1989) After America's ban against the immigration of Chinese women is lifted, Wah Gay sends his son back to China to find his betrothed in this delightful ethnic comedy about an arranged marriage gone awry. Though it's also a love match, when the couple returns to America, the challenge of making a living, adjusting to a new life and a womanizing gambler threaten their union. PG 13. (122 min.)
Flower Drum Song (1961) Chinese beauty Mei Li arrives in San Francisco to meet her fiancé, wealthy nightclub owner Sammy Fong, in an arranged marriage, but the groom has his eye on his star singer Linda Low. This film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical is filled with stunningsong-and-dance numbers showcasing the contrast between Mei Li's traditional family and her growing fascination with American culture. Not rated. (132 min.)
Last Train Home (2009) Documentarian Lixin Fan follows a couple who, like 130 million other Chinese peasants, left their rural village for work in the city, leaving their children to be raised by grandparents, returning only once a year on an arduous 1,000-mile journey. Not rated. (87 min.) Subtitled.
The Road Home(2000) In 1950s China, young country girl Zhao Di falls head over heels for her village's new schoolteacher, but the couple's courtship is cut short when the new communist government summons him for questioning during the Cultural Revolution. (89 min.) Subtitled.
Together (2002) A young boy, Xiao Chun, proves to be a massive talent when it comes to the violin, so his father helps him find the best teacher in Beijing, far away from their hometown. There, Xiao meets a nightclub worker with a heart of gold and finds true friendship. Rated PG. (119 min.) Subtitled.
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