Book Bag
Growing Up Under a Red Flag: A Memoir of Surviving the Chinese Cultural Revolution
Author
Illustrator
Xinmei Liu
Publication Date
May 07, 2024
Genre / Grade Band
Non-fiction / 4th − 5th
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Description
A stirring and magnificently illustrated picture-book memoir of the author’s childhood during the Chinese Cultural Revolution
Ying Chang Compestine was a young girl in 1966 when Mao launched his Cultural Revolution to reclaim power and eliminate non-communist values in the country. His army began punishing and arresting people who didn’t agree with him, foreign reading material was banned, and children were all required to dress in uniform and carry the Little Red Book of Mao’s teachings. It was a time of fear, mayhem, and scarcity that lasted until Mao’s death ten years later, when Ying was thirteen. Through those ten harrowing years, Ying’s parents found ways to secretly educate her and allow her dreams of visiting America to stay vibrant. Now she brings her childhood story and China’s history to life in this absorbing and beautiful picture book.
Publication date
May 07, 2024
Classification
Non-fiction
Page Count
-
ISBN-13
9780593533987
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Rocky Pond Books
Series
-
BISAC categories
JNF007050 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Biography & Autobiography | Cultural Heritage
JNF025030 - Juvenile Nonfiction | History | Asia
JNF038020 - Juvenile Nonfiction | People & Places | Asia
JNF025030 - Juvenile Nonfiction | History | Asia
JNF038020 - Juvenile Nonfiction | People & Places | Asia
Library of Congress categories
-
Kirkus
A vivid glimpse into a childhood under communist rule.
ALA/Booklist
Illustrating events in an appropriately Socialist Realist style, Liu depicts human figures standing and gesturing in broad, dramatic poses, with exaggerated expressions of fear or fervor to reflect the tenor of the moment, against backgrounds marked with revolutionary posters and otherexactly drawn details. An intense and account of life in an authoritarian regime, relevant to our times.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review
Compestine's childhood informs this tense account of 10 years under Mao Zedong's oppressive rule. Born in Wuhan, China, the book's narrator is three years old in 1966, when Mao declares a Cultural Revolution to regain power over the government. Her parents were doctors, her father a surgeon trained by an American who left Wuhan when the Communists began to rule China. Though she learns English and reads with her father, who "loved my curiosity and strong spirit," such activities must be conducted in secret, and the Cultural Revolution soon encompasses electrical outages, food rationing and scarcity, mandated uniforms, and the removal of individuals who don't conform. Her father is targeted following the receipt of a letter from the U.S., and the Red Guard storms their home, arresting him as an American spy. Debut illustrator Liu gives the ink and digitally colored artwork the feel of vintage Chinese art and design, strengthening an already gripping historical narrative. Ages 6-9. (May)
Copyright 2024 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.
Ying Chang Compestine
Ying Chang Compestine grew up in Wuhan, China during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which she has written about in her acclaimed novel Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party and this new picture book memoir. She graduated from Central China Normal University with a degree in English, then earned her Master's in Sociology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is an award-winning author of 25 books (fiction, picture books, and cookbooks), a leading national authority on Asian culture and cuisine, a former food editor for Martha Stewart's Whole Living magazine, and has taught writing and sociology in both the U.S. and China. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband. Xinmei Liu was born and grew up in Shanghai, China and is inspired by vintage Chinese art and design. She earned her BFA from the Pratt Institute and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, and now works as an award-winning freelance illustrator and publishing assistant. She has illustrated for the New York Times, New Yorker, NBC News, and Foreign Policy, among others, and her artwork has been exhibited in galleries in New York and Shanghai. She now lives in Indiana with her pet rabbit and cat. This is her first published book.
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