REVOLUTION IS NOT A DINNER PARTY
by Ying Chang Compestine
It’s 1972 China, and nine-year-old Ling is the child of two doctors. Life isn’t perfect, but, Ling is happy, excels at school and loves studying English with her father. Everything changes with the advent of Chairman Mao’s regime. Luxurious items like flowered fabrics and pastries disappear. Anything associated with the West becomes suspect. Then a political watchdog moves into the family’s apartment. Their upstairs neighbors, the Wongs, are denounced and arrested; Ling’s parents are demoted; and the family lives in fear about the future. School is horrible; Ling becomes the target of the son of a government official and is mocked and beaten because she’s seen as bourgeois. When Ling’s father saves a political poet, he too is taken into custody, and Ling and her mother must survive alone as further horrors unfold. This child’s-eye view of the Chinese Cultural Revolution is ultimately a tale of survival; lyrical yet gripping, accessible and memorable, it’s based on the author’s experiences. Certain to inspire discussion about freedom and justice. (author’s note, historical background) (Fiction. 10-14)