Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution - Softcover

Li, Moying

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312608675 ISBN 13: 9780312608675

Publisher: Square Fish, 2010

Synopsis

Most people cannot remember when their childhood ended. I, on the other hand, have a crystal-clear memory of that moment. It happened at night in the summer of 1966, when my elementary school headmaster hanged himself.

In 1966 Moying, a student at a prestigious language school in Beijing, seems destined for a promising future. Everything changes when student Red Guards begin to orchestrate brutal assaults, violent public humiliations, and forced confessions. After watching her teachers and headmasters beaten in public, Moying flees school for the safety of home, only to witness her beloved grandmother denounced, her home ransacked, her father's precious books flung onto the back of a truck, and Baba himself taken away. From labor camp, Baba entrusts a friend to deliver a reading list of banned books to Moying so that she can continue to learn. Now, with so much of her life at risk, she finds sanctuary in the world of imagination and learning.

This inspiring memoir follows Moying Li from age twelve to twenty-two, illuminating a complex, dark time in China's history as it tells the compelling story of one girl's difficult but determined coming-of-age during the Cultural Revolution.

Snow Falling in Spring is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

About this title

About the Author

Moying Li grew up in Beijing, China during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). During that period, Moying was primarily self-taught, following the guided lessons and reading lists her father, who had been a prominent screenwriter, was able to send to her from a "hard labor farm." In 1980, thanks to a generous scholarship and a plane ticket from Swarthmore College, Moying left Beijing where her family still lives, and traveled to the United States to pursue graduate studies, and for the next ten years she immersed herself in what she had always craved, the unrestricted pursuit of knowledge. She is the author of Snow Falling in Spring.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Snow Falling in Spring

Coming of Age in China During the Cultural RevolutionBy Li, Moying

Square Fish

Copyright © 2010 Li, Moying
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312608675

From Snow Falling in Spring

In front of Baba’s eyes, they flung book after book onto the stone floor. One of them reached into a lower shelf for Baba’s rare books. Dragging them out by their silk strings, he yanked them open.

“Please,” Baba pleaded, trying to free himself from the hands of his guard. “Don’t touch those.”

The guard pulled Baba’s arms back and tied a rope around them.

Then the soldiers dumped all our books into large hemp sacks that they pulled from the back of the truck. “The paper factory will turn this trash into pulp in no time,” they announced. When Lao Lao tried to plead with them, a soldier just pushed her away. Dragging the sacks through our gate, they flung them, one after another, onto the open truck. Then, hurling Baba on top of the bulging bags, the soldiers drove away in a cloud of dust, leaving my grandmother filled with sorrow . . .

With our neighbors’ help, I cleared the rubble. After everyone had left, I closed the door and all the windows and sank to the cold stone floor, my face buried in my arms. The sun was setting, and darkness was creeping into the house.

Our bookshelves now stood naked in the shadows— like proud but defeated old warriors.

Continues...

Excerpted from Snow Falling in Spring by Li, Moying Copyright © 2010 by Li, Moying. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Square Fish
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312608675
• ISBN 13: 9780312608675
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192