Bronze and Sunflower

I always like reading anything about day-to-day living in China. In this book, I loved the descriptions of what life is like in rural China, eg making their own reed shoes and building their own roofs. On the surface, this book is about the idyllic life in the countryside. However, it is set during the cultural revolution but so subtly described in the back-drop that it is perfect for the target audience. We often read about the people banished to the countryside, and this book tells me what happens to them when they arrive.

I also enjoyed it as it… show more.

Cao Wenxuan is a professor at Peking University and one of China’s most popular and esteemed writers of literature for children. Thanks to award-winning translator Helen Wang, this lyrical middle-grade novel is available in English. Set in the Chinese countryside during the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bronze and Sunflower tells the story of a city girl, Sunflower, who accompanies her father when he is “sent down” to the countryside for political re-education. After her father dies in a drowning accident, Sunflower is taken in by the family of a mute boy named Bronze, whose disability keeps him apart from… show more.