Ribbons - Hardcover

Yep, Laurence

3.8

318 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 039922906X ISBN 13: 9780399229060

Publisher: Putnam Juvenile, 1996

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When Robin Lee is forced to give up her beloved ballet lessons because her parents need the money to bring her grandmother to America from China, Robin finds herself resenting this difficult--and different--elderly foreign woman, crippled by years of having her feet bound.

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About the Author:

Laurence Michael Yep is a prolific Chinese-American writer, best known for children's books. In 2005, he received the biennial Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for his career contribution to American children's literature. His distinguished novels for young people that deal with the Asian-American experience include two Newbery Honor Award winners, Dragonwings and Dragon's Gate. Mr. Yep, who has a Ph.D. in English, has taught at the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Barbara. He also is an award-winning playwright and has edited a collection of writings by Asian-Americans.

From Publishers Weekly:

Yep fumbles with this strained tale about an 11-year-old girl who yearns to dance. The star of her ballet class, Robin Lee has to give up her lessons at Madame Oblamov's academy when her mother imposes a draconian budget on the household, in order to save enough money to bring Robin's grandmother from China to the Lees' home in San Francisco. Robin gamely practices on her own, stuffing her feet into outgrown toe shoes and dreaming of her return to ballet school, but tuition money isn't available, even after her grandmother finally moves in. To make matters worse, Grandmother blatantly favors Robin's younger brother. In a forced parallel, Robin damages her feet (those too-small toe shoes), and only Grandmother can understand her determination to dance anyway: Grandmother's feet were bound in childhood and, despite immense pain, she unbound them in adulthood as a way of embracing modern values. A lot of the characterizations here verge on stereotypes: the indomitable Chinese matriarch, the unstoppable young artist with a dream, the impoverished but noble-hearted Russian ballet mistress. Combine this with the adults' extremist stances (Mom won't even let Robin keep the $20 her other grandmother sends for Christmas), and the novel reads as a lengthy contrivance. Ages 10-14.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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