She never veers from a child's sensibility the child in these pages rarely judges the actions of those around her, she's simply bent on surviving. The author recreates moments of cruelty and victory so convincingly that readers will feel almost as if they're in the room with her. That Mah eventually soars above her circumstances is proof of her strength of character. Mah finds escape from this emotionally barren landscape at school, but the academic awards she wins only enrage her jealous siblings and stepmother, and she is eventually torn from her aunt-her one champion-and shipped off to boarding school. They are given attic rooms in their big Shanghai home, they have nothing to wear but school uniforms, and they subsist on a bare-bones diet while their stepmother's children dine sumptuously. When her father remarries and moves the family to Shanghai to evade the Japanese during WWII, Mah and her siblings are relegated to second-class status by their stepmother.
Blamed for the loss of her mother, who died shortly after giving birth to her, Mah is an outcast in her own family. Mah revisits the territory she covered in her adult bestseller, Falling Leaves, for this painful and poignant memoir aimed at younger readers.
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