Homesick: My Own Story

by Jean Fritz

Book Overview

A Newbery Honor book

Jean Fritz's award-winning account of her life in China, and to honor this story, it is only fitting that it be added to our prestigious line of Puffin Modern Classics. This fictionalized autobiography tells the heartwarming story of a little girl growing up in an unfamiliar place. While other girls her age were enjoying their childhood in America, Jean Fritz was in China in the midst of political unrest. Jean Fritz...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0142407615
• ISBN13: 9780142407615
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 7.0"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

There's no place.

A really remarkable book. Jean Fritz is author of many an exciting children's biography. If you've read "Why Don't You Get a Horse, Sam Adams?" or "Can't You Make Them Behave, King George?" then you know her works already. Turning her talents towards a slightly more recent history, Fritz takes a good long look at her own life. Having grown up in China in the early 1920s, this is a story of a child trying to discover where she fits in.First of all, you have to admire Fritz's candor. The very first thing she does is state in the Forward that she considers this a fiction. Though the facts are true here and there, the author has taken some liberties with time and memory. She obviously cannot remember everything that happened perfectly, so she has filled in the gaps as best as possible. Though, she points out, "it does not feel like fiction to me. It is my story, told as truly as I can tell it". THANK YOU, Jean Fritz. How many books do we read where the author claims that everything within the book is the whole truth and nothing but the truth, while taking wild leaps in narrative and interpretation? Finally, we have an author that admits that much of this book may be considered fiction, though she herself remembers it as fact. Such honesty is admirable, and exceedingly rare in non-fiction writers.As for the story itself, Fritz is very good at what she does. The writing here is superb. Living in a very sketchy time in China's history, little Jean was in the unfortunate position of living in a country where foreigners were finally not being tolerated with much kindness any longer. Often times Chinese peasants rail against Jean for being the kind of "foreign devil" that is a bane to their country. Fritz never condemns these people, and even makes note at the back of this book the reasons behind their dislike and distrust. China was a country that was continually being divided into smaller and smaller pieces by the invading colonists. Neither does the character of Jean ever forget that the servants who work for her are human beings as well. Her parents often do fall into the master-servant manner of thinking, a fact that Jean objects to. They do not learn much about the world in which they live. They instead attempt to recreate their own American lives in a foreign land. But Jean knows that there are aspects of Chinese life that she vastly prefers to the life of her parents. The fact that she recognizes this is impressive. The fact that she can relay it years after the fact in this book, is astounding.If I have any objections to this book at all they are directed not at the author, but at the illustrator. Margot Tomes has her points. She is not necessarily a bad illustrator. But in this particular book her pictures are superfluous and unnecessary. Sometimes they even touch upon the offensive without really going there. While Fritz never condemns the native Chinese for their opinions, Tomes draws them looking sneaky or sordid a

Jean Fritz has done it this time-for sure

I read this book this year, when my mom sent me a box of books to camp over the summer. All the rest were Dear Americas so this was the first one I picked up. Once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. I read during softball and got hit on the head. I read during dinner and stained my favortie shirt. I tried to read dujring instructional swim but my counselor took the book away from me. I read under the covers and I got into trouble when my division head came in. I finished it in under eight hours. It's the best non-Dear America book I've ever read. It tells a very interesting story, full of humor and wit. Jean Fritz is an incredibly talented writer, who managed to cover two years time in an average-sized book. Each chapter is a story all its own and also funny. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a really good historical fiction/nonfiction story.

My fifth grade students and I loved this book.

We loved this book because we were able to do an author study on Jean Fritz. We have read many of her books. The fifth grade curriculum requires us to study American History. Reading books by Jean Fritz has allowed my students and I to approach history with an open mind. Getting away from the text books has been enjoyable for all of us. Learning through literature is very effective and we have grasped many historical concepts by reading these books.

a beautifully real book

Homesick: My Own Story is one of those rare books that feel entirely true. So many times an author's memoir is written "for" a specific audience, so that it takes on the tone of what the readers expect or are hooked by more than by what's true, but Jean Fritz's account of her childhood in China feels absolutely accurate, as if she is writing down the girl she once was. I found the novel an interesting read when I first read it, and when I read it again upon moving to Shanghai, I found it familiar. Even though so many years have passed, many things are the same, here and all over the world. A different sort of story for the un-narrow-minded, Homesick is the kind of discovery that we should all make about ourselves.

An intriguing visit to a place I've never been

" Homesick: My Own Story" was a real eye-opener for me. I first read it when I was in seventh grade and I still remember what it was like: Looking through Jean's eyes I saw China in a rough time; I learned where the Yangtse River was and about the junks that floated upon it; and how people would get rides in rickshaws pulled by men eager for the money. I broiled through all of her worries and troubles, grinned in happy times, and cried when everything seemed hopeless. I liken this book to "Number the Stars" by Lois Lowry. "Homesick..." did not have as much action the way through as that story, but it certainly holds the same endearing qualities as "Number the Stars". This book read very fluently and I came to know much about something I had never been told about. I recommend "Homesick: My Own Story" to anyone interested in different cultures and a personable young lady who would rather have the name Marjorie instead of Jean