Red Land, Yellow River

By: Zhang, Ange

Book Overview

When Mao's Cultural Revolution took hold in China in June 1966, Ange Zhang was thirteen years old. Ange's father was a famous writer whose Yellow River Cantata was considered by many to be the anthem of the Chinese Revolution. Shortly after the revolution began, many of Ange's classmates joined the Red Guard, Mao's youth movement, and they drove their teachers out of the classrooms. Ange and his friends now spent their days memorizing Mao's quotations and pasting posters in the streets. But in the weeks that follow Ange discovered that his father's fame as a writer now meant that he was a target of the new regime and that Ange himself was characterized as a black kid, unable to join the Red Guard. Ange's whole world had fallen apart.When his father was arrested, he began to question everything that was happening in his country. He secretly read every book in his father's library, and through his reading discovered the beginnings of another view of the world.

Finally, Ange was forced to join many other young urban Chinese students in the countryside for re-education. While life in the village was challenging physically, Ange found emotional space to develop his own artistic talent.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0888994893
• ISBN13: 9780888994899
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Groundwood Books
• Length: 56 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.1" x 11.2"
• Age Range: 8 years and up
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 3

Customer Reviews

gorgeous art , fascinating history and important lesson

Experience the Chinese Cultural Revolution through a teen's eyes in Ange Zhang's straightforward and poignant autobiography. After his father, an intellectual seen as a counter-revolutionary, is publicly humiliated and later arrested, Zhang's shame grew, as an adolescent's could, towards his own family. In 1966, at the age of 13, he wants desperately to fit in, and not be labeled the "bad guy's son". In time, Zhang creates his own faction of the Red Guard, alienating himself further from his family until an experience unravels his fervent idealism. Gradually, he is re-awakened when he discovers his father's hidden books. Locked in bookcases sealed with paper strips bearing the Red Guard's seals, Zhang takes the hinges off the book case doors to keep the locks and seals intact. Day after day he stays inside his house reading banned books by Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and Jack London. He realizes through reading that each of us is unique and needs to pursue our own destiny. By the end, his family is re-united and Zhang is able to pursue the life of an artist. Zhang's moving account is illustrated with lush digitally rendered pictures of everyday life during Mao's Cultural Revolution, and accompanied by reproductions of period posters, black and white photos and artifacts. His striking artwork is reminiscent of silk-screened posters, and you will be astonished by his lovely work. A fine appendix expands the historical context. Earning a *Starred Review* from Booklist, Zhang's stirring experience gently unpacks a hopeful message to resonate with all pre-teens: oppression cannot squelch individuality and the power of dreams. For ages 8 and older.