Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution
By Moying Li
4/5
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About this ebook
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.
Moying Li
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.
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Reviews for Snow Falling in Spring
33 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I think that this book is very good and teaches a lot. I found the story to be told with very great detail. It helps that when you read the book that you are familiar with The Great Leap Forward and what is happening in China at that time- a few minutes of research will do.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beautiful biography that gives us aglimpse of life in China during the Cultural Revolution. It also portraits the beauty of reading good literature and love for learning.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I just discovered that I read this book ten years ago and had no memory of it. Wow. My review said the writing was "bland," and I'm afraid my opinion hasn't changed. To have completely forgotten a book, it must have made no impression on me. The thing is, the story is very interesting, but it doesn't move me in any way. For me, the narrative is very flat. To have read this twice with the same reaction and totally forgotten it, I must have a) had an interest in what it was like to live through the Cultural Revolution and b) gotten very little out of it. I often forget characters and whole plots, but not that I have read a book. I just think it could have been so much more.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Li's book is a moving first-hand account of living through the cultural revolution in China. She manages to survive by moving to the hinterlands and working on a farm. All the while, she remains true to her first love: books and literature. A glossary and chronology make the book more accessible for the average reader.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A wonderfully written description of the authors life and family during the historic periods of The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and the re-opening of China. I've read or heard many stories of people's lives during the Cultural Revolution and all the stories are very similar. However, I still find the period fascinating and am amazed by the stories that I hear and read.Moying Li shares the love for her family and especially her maternal grandmother in the pages. I definitely recommend this book for a quick read of one person's life during a very historic period in China.