Review: Girl Named Faithful Plum

A Girl Named Faithful Plum: The True Story of a Dancer from China and How She Achieved Her Dream by Richard Bernstein.
Originally Alfred A. Knopf, Random House, New York, 2011.
My edition Yearling, Random House Children’s Books, New York, 2012.
Middle grade (YA?) nonfiction, 272 pages.
Lexile: 1080L .
AR Level: 6.6 (worth 11.0 points) .

In 1978, an eleven year old girl traveled from her small town on the northern border of China to the Beijing Dance Academy for their open auditions, along with sixty thousand other applicants. Against all odds, she managed to be one of the twelve girls chosen – but that was just the start of her troubles.

A Girl Named Faithful Plum: The True Story of a Dancer from China and How She Achieved Her Dream by Richard Bernstein.

Zhongmei spent years in training, and had a long career, but this story focuses mainly on preparing to audition and her first year at school. About half the book focuses on her journey to even make it to auditions and then her progress through the seven layers of audition. The second half covers her first year at the school, and finally an epilogue tells what happened to her after.

Bernstein employs a number of timeline skips to maintain the pacing, although he’s not always successful. His most frequent device is the letters sent back and forth between Zhongmei and her beloved da-jie Zhongqin. He also occasionally has Zhongmei think back on past events. At some points there are skips forward, when reasonable within the story.

Review: Small Steps

Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio by Peg Kehret.
Albert Whitman & Company, Chicago, IL, 1996.
Middle grade nonfiction/memoir, 168 pages + preview.
Lexile: 830L .
AR Level: 5.2 (worth 4.0 points) .
NOTE: This review is of the nonfiction polio narrative, not the fictional Louis Sachar Holes sequel.

Seven months in 12 year old Peg’s life, starting in September 1949 shortly before she became ill, and continuing with her illness and survival for the rest of that school year.

Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio by Peg Kehret.

When COVID hit, I went through a phase of reading children’s books about other epidemics. Books for young readers have the happy endings that adult authors rarely do, and there was something comforting about knowing others had survived the spread of contagious diseases.

Everyone in this story is either described or presumed white, but many characters, including the author/narrator, experience physical disability as a from the polio epidemic. I also wanted to write about this book because it was one of the best family read-alouds we did during quarantine, and ought to be better known.

Review: Ghost Boy

Ghost Boy: The Miraculous Escape of a Misdiagnosed Boy Trapped Inside His Own Body by Martin Pistorius with Megan Lloyd Davies.
Nelson Books, Thomas Nelson, HarperCollins Christian, Nashville, Tennessee, 2013.
Adult memoir, 276 pages.
Lexile: not leveled
AR Level: 6.2 (worth 11.0 points) .
NOTE: Despite the reading level, definitely an adult book. See content warnings for more information.
FURTHER NOTE: Not to be confused with the 2018 MG historical fantasy novel Ghost Boys, also reviewed on this blog.

The story of a boy who, in 1988, slowly succumbed to a mysterious illness that left him paralyzed and unable to function. Except Martin was not totally gone, and slowly returned to full consciousness, aware of his surroundings but unable to control his body at all.

Ghost Boy by Martin Pistorius with Megan Lloyd Davies.

This was a surprising read. The cover says it’s a New York Times bestseller, but I’d never heard of it before a friend handed me the book. The subtitle and blurb probably already clued you in, but since I do review a lot of fantasy, let me be clear that this is an adult work of nonfiction.

Reading a South African story that didn’t discuss any of the unique political or cultural milieu was interesting but also felt weird. Race is rarely mentioned, although sometimes it can be guessed from a name or the description of a person. At the same time, it also makes sense that in this particular circumstance, Pistorius truly didn’t care much about racial tensions or the larger political world!

Review: Tomboy Survival Guide

Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote.
Arsenal Pulp Press, Vancouver, BC, Canada, originally published 2016, my edition 2019.
Adult nonfiction, 244 pages + 12 pages for notes at the end.
Not leveled.

Canadian memoir through a collection of essays – about life as a young butch and then a non-binary adult.

Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote.

This was a gift from a friend who pointed out that I hadn’t reviewed any nonfiction by non-binary authors yet – to which my response was that I hadn’t read any yet. A quick trip to another room and this was pressed into my hands with the instruction that it should be my first, but definitely not only, non-binary nonfiction read.

Review: My Seven Black Fathers

My Seven Black Fathers: A Young Activist’s Memoir of Race, Family, and the Mentors Who Made Him Whole by Will Jawando.
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, 2022.
Memoir/autobiography, 232 pages.
Not yet leveled.

The story of one man’s early life through the lens of seven essential mentors.

My Seven Black Fathers by Will Jawando.

Jawando begins by comparing his own life to a childhood friend, Kalfani, who didn’t have the same kind of mentoring available to him. Indeed, this is Jawando’s central theme throughout – the importance of community.

I’m not sure what my expectations were – perhaps something like Misty Copeland’s personal reflections on a variety of related figures. My Seven Black Fathers reads more like a hybrid biography/memoir. Jawando tells the story of his life in roughly chronological format, only occasionally needing to use the subject emphasis and timeline jumps characteristic of memoir.

Review: The Lost Garden

The Lost Garden by Laurence Yep.
My edition Beech Tree Paperback, Harper Collins, New York, 1996 – originally Simon & Schuster, 1991.
MG autobiography, 118 pages.
Lexile: 1110L .
AR Level: 7.1 (worth 7.0 points) .

The story of famous children’s author Laurence Yep’s life from his early years to the start of his writing career, although focusing mostly on his coming of age in the 1950s and 1960s.

The slim paperback fooled me into thinking that this would be a book for elementary students, but the content is more appropriate for tweens and young teens. Yep doesn’t shy away from difficult topics, such as his own family’s brushes with poverty, a customer whose husband brutally attacked her, Mark Twain’s suicidal thoughts, the topless dancers at a club in the neighborhood, and pulse-pounding confrontations when the burglar alarm goes off.

He tells even difficult and painful tales in a straightforward way, and frequently pauses to explain details that might not be known or understood by younger readers. This reminded me strongly of Roald Dahl’s Boy – a tale of a fairly ordinary life told with vivid details that render it fascinating. Aspects such as what it was like to have severe asthma attacks before common home treatments may shock young readers.

There are so many tidbits here about how he was inspired or helped with various novels by different relatives or events. I’m planning a systematic rereading of his entire Golden Mountain Chronicles series, many of which I’ve read but not in order – after which I might need to reread this book!

Review: Red Scarf Girl

Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji Li Jiang.
Scholastic, New York, originally published 1997, my edition 1999.
MG nonfiction, 284 pages.
Lexile: 780L .
AR Level: 5.0 (worth 8.0 points) .

A girl becoming a young adult during the Cultural Revolution adores Mao but is troubled by the practical realities of the drastic changes, especially when they start to impact her own family. She has to decide how to navigate high-stakes and nuanced situations – and ultimately whether her loyalty lies with the Communist Party or with her own family.

Red Scarf Girl by Ji Li Jiang.

I was excited to pick this back up – much like The Arrow Over the Door, The Watsons Go to Birmingham, or many of Laurence Yep’s earlier works, I haven’t read through it in at least a decade. With some others, I misremembered major elements, so for this one I tried to recall what had stuck with me for over a decade.

It’s about one preteen/teen girl’s life in China between 1966 and 1968 as major changes occur to her family and community. But I must admit the most memorable aspect was the cover with her disembodied head over the flag, so encountering a used copy with that same 1990s cover was nostalgic. Newer versions have a cover more likely to be picked up by modern students.

Review: Genie

Genie: A Scientific Tragedy by Russ Rymer.
HarperPerennial, HarperCollins, New York, originally published 1993, my edition 1994.
Adult nonfiction, 222 pages.
Not leveled.

The story of a girl used for scientific research, the scientists who worked with her, and the way their interactions changed many lives.

Genie: A Scientific Tragedy by Russ Rymer.

The story behind this is so poignant that I couldn’t help wishing again and again that it had been a bit better told. Indeed, if the blurb had not interested me so highly, I would not have persevered beyond the frankly boring first chapter. This was a frequent theme as Rymer often went into digressions which, even when intended to illuminate some aspect of the story, were often poorly timed.

And yet… the story here truly is compelling in every sense.

“Genie” as the name chosen to be used in the scientific research on her, had a truly unique and horrifying childhood. Kept entirely in one room and mostly forced into one or two positions by restraints, she spent more than a decade strapped to a potty seat, eating only liquid or mushed food, and only able to move her fingers and toes. Her blind mother finally escaped from her abusive father with her in tow and entirely accidentally ended up in social services by accident instead.

Review: She Dared – Malala Yousafzai

She Dared: Malala Yousafzai by Jenni L. Walsh.
Scholastic, New York, 2019.
Elementary/MG biography, 120 pages.
Lexile: not leveled
AR Level: 5.0 (worth 2.0 points) .

A highly problematic youth biography of Malala Yousafzai.

She Dared: Malala Yousafzai by Jenni L. Walsh.

It’s rare that by the third chapter of a children’s book I’m continuing to read only for due diligence. I tend to avoid or delay negative reviews – it’s more fun to write about wonderful books, or try to analyze the ones I feel lukewarm about. Since leaving daily school librarianship in a slight (and given the pandemic, well-timed) rerouting of my career, I haven’t followed Scholastic as closely. It’s no longer part of my professional duties to coordinate book fairs and Scholastic purchases, and in my personal and blog life, I prefer to focus more on smaller publishers and lesser known authors. One of my kids still orders from them though, which is how this book ended up in our house.

A quick glance at the series and it’s obvious that this was an attempt by Scholastic to capitalize on the success of female biography series such as Rebel Girls. Even the name here is a rip off of the She Persisted books. But being derivative isn’t always bad in children’s literature – while these books are less fun for adults to read, simplified plots and repetitive sentences can also help early readers in some circumstances.

What bothered me most about this book is that it was very clearly written for white readers (although it doesn’t state that openly) and panders heavily. If you read Malala’s own books, her perspective involves criticism of her culture – but from a place of deep love, respect, and understanding. For her as a cultural insider to denounce the Taliban and some aspects of traditional life, involves very different nuance than what Walsh uses here.

Review: Facing the Lion

Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna by Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton, with Herman Viola.
National Geographic, Washington, D.C., 2003.
MG autobiography, 128 pages.
Lexile:  720L  .
AR Level:  5.1 (worth 4.0 points)  .

A unique story of a nomadic Maasai boy in Kenya who went to school and eventually came to America.

Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna by Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton with Herman Viola.

This is one of those books (of which, thankfully, I keep finding more and more) that I cannot recommend highly enough.  There are few books in English that tell about African life in an unbiased and non-colonial manner.  When you add to that a middle grade, non-fiction book about nomadic peoples?  I cannot think of any other.  Lekuton has lived that rare combination of an extraordinary life and a perfectly ordinary one.  Luckily for us, he’s also decided to put it into an autobiography for middle grade readers.