Moying Li's SNOW FALLING IN SPRING reviewed in Inkweaver

Posted by NathanKP
April 2, 2009

“Snow Falling in Spring,” is a historical biography by Moying Li, about her life growing up during the tumultuous Chinese Cultural Revolution. Moying Li begins her book with a description of her innocent childhood before the Cultural Revolution, playing in the courtyard of her family home with her friends and the family pets. Then she describes the beginning of the Cultural Revolution and its first manifestation in her childhood world: a large furnace for producing iron and steel. This furnace was erected in the courtyard where she liked to play.

During the Cultural Revolution the Chinese government announced that China could catch up to Western countries in one Great Leap Forward, if every citizen worked hard to increase the output of goods, food, etc. The Chinese eagerly embraced this bold plan. Moying Li describes how her initial apprehension about the steel furnace turned into wholehearted approval. She even went to the kitchen to pull out pots and pans to melt in the furnace. Despite the energy and enthusiasm put into the furnace project, though, the result is failure:

In the courtyard, Da Jiu and our neighbors sat on the woodpile, their heads bowed like those of defeated soldiers. The fire in the furnace had died, leaving a lingering smell of burned wood.

“What happened, Da Jiu?”

“The iron and steel we made was not good enough.” He sighed. I stared at him in disbelief. “We simply did not know enough to make it right,” he added.

Now I was sad, too. Climbing up the woodpile to sit next to him, I leaned my head against his shoulder, as crestfallen as he and our neighbors.

“But we tried so hard.”

“Yes,” he said. “We did.”

The failure of the furnace sets the tone for much of the rest of “Snow Falling in Spring.” Although the Cultural Revolution had grand goals, carrying out the plans was more difficult than it seemed and often had unanticipated results. For example, Moying Li mentions another government plan: to eliminate the sparrow. The idea was that this small bird ate seeds and crops, so by killing off the species in China food production would be boosted. Although the war against sparrows was highly successful and millions were killed, the next year saw crop failure as insects that would have normally been kept in check by the sparrows ravaged the fields.

Perhaps the most memorable statement in “Snow Falling in Spring” is found at the beginning of the fourth chapter.

Most people cannot remember when their childhood ended. I, on the other hand, have a crystal clear memory of the moment. It happened one night, in the summer of 1966, when my elementary school headmaster hanged himself.

Moying Li starts by describing her early days in school. She paints a vivid picture of caring, fun loving, teachers and interesting assignments that kept her busy and happy. But the atmosphere in Moying Li's school changed when the Red Guard movement began to gain momentum. Basically the Red Guard was a vast student group that developed as a backlash movement in response to Western ideology being taught in Chinese schools. The Red Guard felt that much of the instruction in Chinese schools was really propaganda designed to corrupt Eastern minds and turn young students away from Communism, toward Democracy. Whether this was the case or not, the Red Guard made it their job to expose school officials that they felt were not showing enough support for the Communist government.

Moying Li does an excellent job of showing the steps that led the Red Guard from watchdog status to full fledged militant terrorism. Then she shows how Red Guard violence touched people progressively closer to her, first her favorite teachers, then the school headmaster, and finally her own family.

For the full article, click here.

Moying Li's SNOW FALLING IN SPRING nominated for IRA Children's and Young Adult's Book Award

Moying Li's Snow Falling in Spring has been nominated for the International Reading Association's 2009 Children's and Young Adult's Book Award. Last year's winners include Constance Leeds and Lita Judge. Children’s and Young Adult’s Book Awards are given for an author’s first or second published book written for children or young adults (ages birth to 17 years). Awards are given for fiction and nonfiction in each of three categories: primary, intermediate, and young adult. Books from any country and in any language published for the first time during the 2008 calendar year will be considered. Each award carries a monetary stipend.

To get the latest updates or learn more about the IRA, click here.

Moying Li's SNOW FALLING IN SPRING reviewed in the New York Times

Mao’s Little Helper

By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: August 15, 2008

Life in Mao Zedong’s China is so exciting for little Moying Li. The grown-ups talk of a Great Leap Forward that will allow China to overtake Britain. Her family even gives over their lovely courtyard to a belching, smoky furnace so that the neighborhood can supply steel for the Great Leap. Neighbors contribute their cooking pots and cutlery for the cause. When Li’s grandmother asks if anyone has seen her cleaver, the little girl proudly responds, “Yes, I helped our country with it.” The family retrieves the big kettle and some spoons from the pile, but the cleaver, as she recalls, “had joined its comrades in the burning fire, doing its share for China.” Everyone has a good laugh over that one.

Then there is the war on the sparrows, a crusade to eliminate the accused scourge of crops. Li and her brother, Di Di, cheer lustily as her father’s pellet gun fells one feathered threat after another.

But things do not go as hoped. Making good steel, it turns out, is more difficult than it looks, and the government rejects the lot, leaving the neighbors downhearted and decidedly less well equipped in their kitchens.

As for the sparrows, well, the government had not considered the fact that sparrows eat insects. Crops are ravaged. In coming years, as a result of natural and man-made disasters, millions die.

And then things really begin to get bad.

Small tragedies are the prelude to great ones in “Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution,” a memoir of the wrenching years of Mao. With the Olympics bringing renewed attention to China, it can be easy to forget the pain that went before, pain that occurred in living memory. But this memoir makes those times unforgettable. Simply and hauntingly told, the book is written for young readers, but adults can learn a great deal from it as well.

For the full article, click here.

Moying Li at the Boston Athenaem

Moying Li: Snow Falling in Spring
WGBH Forum Network

In 1966 Moying Li, a student at a prestigious language school in Beijing, seems destined for a promising future. Everything changes when student Red Guards begin to orchestrate brutal assaults, violent public humiliations, and forced confessions. After watching her teachers and headmasters beaten in public, Moying flees school for the safety of home, only to witness her beloved grandmother denounced, her home ransacked, and her father's precious books flung onto the back of a truck while he himself is taken away. From labor camp, her father smuggles a reading list of banned books to Moying so that she can continue to learn. Then, with so much of her life at risk, she finds sanctuary in the world of imagination and learning. This inspiring memoir follows Moying Li from age twelve to twenty-two, illuminating a complex, dark time in China's history as it tells the compelling story of one girl's difficult but determined coming-of-age during the Cultural Revolution.

Boston Boston Athenaeum member Moying Li, one of the first students to leave China for study abroad after the Cultural Revolution, came to the United States in 1980 on a full scholarship from Swarthmore College. Li's first book, Beacon Hill: The Life and Times of a Neighborhood, was published in 2002.

For the full article and video, click here.

Moying Li's SNOW FALLING IN SPRING in the Taipei Times

A child's view of the 'Great Leap'

Moying Li's new memoir details her experiences growing up during China's Cultural Revolution, which she says gave her a hunger for education.
By David Mehegan
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, BOSTON
Sunday, Jun 15, 2008,Sunday, Jun 15, 2008, Page 14

Once upon a time in faraway China, a little girl lived with her father and grandparents in a house with a courtyard in Beijing. She was happy, playing with her schoolmates and little brother. Then hard times came. She lived through them safely, grew up, and came to the US to study. Now she lives happily with her husband in a house with a courtyard on Beacon Hill, in Boston.

That’s the story of Moying Li, 53, author of the just-published Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution. Published in the young-adult category, the book is written in a style that could appeal as readily to adult readers. It begins with China’s disastrous Great Leap Forward in 1958 and ends in 1977, with the 26-year-old English student crossing the Luohu Bridge into Hong Kong en route to a flight that will take her to a new life in the US.

There are many accounts of the Cultural Revolution, which ravaged Chinese society from 1966 to 1976. What sets Li’s witness and memory apart is its simplicity, lack of clutter or moralizing. It is almost entirely about relationships, with little of politics or history. She does not look back in anger. “I see it in a Taoist way,” she said in an interview at her home. “The good and the bad are part of each other, somehow. Even though I and my generation went though hard times, without it I wonder if we would have gained maturity and reflection. In one sense, the experience of the Cultural Revolution has become to me a strength.”

Li’s mother, assigned to teach in another city, was often absent, so the key adults in the child’s life were her father, who was a screenwriter for an army film bureau and a book lover, and her dynamic grandmother. Both lavished warmth on the two children, and encouraged them to be students and readers. But they were not immune from the troubles around them. In the late 1950s, the family built a backyard furnace, part of a delusional national campaign to build a steel industry that would overtake the productivity of the West. That and other policies of national mismanagement led to failure and famine.

For the full article, click here.

SNOW FALLING IN SPRING reviewed by readers on BookBrowse

Snow Falling in Spring : Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution
by Moying Li

READER REVIEWS

Rated 5 of 5 by Laurie Milton
Inspiring!
This book was given to me as a birthday present and I am so grateful. The beautiful soul of writer Moying shines through and matches the beautiful author photograph. I am inspired to follow my dream and I deeply believe I can do it, referencing the tenacious strength of the author. I sit in awe of her story of coming of age in China during the cultural revolution. God bless you Moying for sharing with all of us.We need it. I live by your quote: EACH ONE,TEACH ONE - and you have.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rated 5 of 5 by H.
Supreme
I am only half way through the book but is one of the best books I have ever read! I usually do not read memoirs (because I like fiction) but my wonderful grandmother turned me to this book and I decided to give it a try. When i started to read Snow Falling In Spring I was blown away by how well the book flowed from one topic to another. Each chapter was like it's own separate story but the author Moying Li always found a couple of ways to tie the previous chapter into the next chapter. Every time I would read this book, I would get so lost in the time period, the plot, the big events that I would forget where I was. One time, I was reading the book at school and the teacher had to call my name at least 5 times to get my attention because I was entirely engulfed in the book. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone, even if you don't like certain types of books. Read about the first 3 chapters and I can almost guarantee that you will fall in love with this spectacular book. Give it a try!!

For the full article, click here.

Moying Li's SNOW FALLING IN SPRING in the Asian Review of Books

Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution by Moying Li

Karmel Schreyer
15/06/2008

Snow Falling in Spring is a memoir -- the story of MOYING LI's childhood in China. It is an idyllic beginning; her carefree days are spent with DiDi (little brother) and cousins running around the family's courtyard under the doting watch of extended family and like-family members. Then, one day, the adults, excited and preoccupied, no longer pay the children much attention, and the beloved sanctuary of the courtyard has been invaded by a horrible belching "backyard furnace". The Great Leap Forward has begun, and Moying Li's life will never be the same...

Like so many memoirs and works of fiction about this time and place, the author finds escape and solace and hope in books -- and especially in the Western classics. People are in fact risking their lives to read these now-forbidden stories, giving us startling proof, perhaps, of the value of literature. Secret reading clubs are formed, whole novels are copied out by candlelight -- all this will surely be inspiration for any reluctant reader to start looking at the classics in a new light (although if they are reading this book, they are certainly doing well in the book-loving department).

Moying writes how reading about Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, as well as Jack London's The Call of the Wild gave her, basically, the will to keep on living. Shakespeare was a struggle (she read in English, with a dictionary nearby) but could relate to the tragedies, such as King Lear: "Loyalty and betrayal, honesty and deception -- all of this had become so recognizable in my own world."

But the book-reading is just a small part of the story, of course.

For the full article, click here.

Moying Li's SNOW FALLING IN SPRING in The Boston Globe

'The good and the bad are part of each other'
From author, a child's-eye view of China's Cultural Revolution

By David Mehegan
Globe Staff / June 9, 2008.

Once upon a time in faraway China, a little girl lived with her father and grandparents in a house with a courtyard in Beijing. She was happy, playing with her schoolmates and little brother. Then hard times came. She lived through them safely, grew up, and came to America to study. Now she lives happily with her husband in a house with a courtyard on Beacon Hill.

That's the story of Moying Li, 53, author of the just-published "Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution." Published in the young-adult category, the book is written in a style that could appeal as readily to adult readers. It begins with China's disastrous Great Leap Forward in 1958 and ends in 1977, with the 26-year-old English student crossing the Luohu Bridge into Hong Kong en route to a flight that will take her to a new life in America.

There are many accounts of the Cultural Revolution, which ravaged Chinese society from 1966 to 1976. What sets Li's witness and memory apart is its simplicity, lack of clutter or moralizing. It is almost entirely about relationships, with little of politics or history. She does not look back in anger. "I see it in a Taoist way," she said in an interview at her home. "The good and the bad are part of each other, somehow. Even though I and my generation went though hard times, without it I wonder if we would have gained maturity and reflection. In one sense, the experience of the Cultural Revolution has become to me a strength."

Li's mother, assigned to teach in another city, was often absent, so the key adults in the child's life were her father, who was a screenwriter for an army film bureau and a book lover, and her dynamic grandmother, Lao Lao. Both lavished warmth on the two children, and encouraged them to be students and readers. But they were not immune from the troubles around them. In the late 1950s, the family built a backyard furnace, part of a delusional national campaign to build a steel industry that would overtake the productivity of the West. That and other policies of national mismanagement led to failure and famine.

In 1966, when Li was 12, the Cultural Revolution burst over her school as it swept the country. Groups of fanatical students, called Red Guards, engaged in a witch hunt, seeking to root out perceived enemies holding back the communist revolution. Students, teachers, and administrators were denounced and attacked. In one incident, an older girl who had previously befriended Li presided over a kangaroo court where a 7-year-old child was forced to beat her father, the assistant headmaster, with a stick. After similar attacks, the headmaster hanged himself, and one of Li's uncles likewise committed suicide. A squad of Red Guards burst into her house, destroyed her father's record collection, and took away his books. A group of thugs threatened Li's widowed grandmother.

For the full article, click here.

Moying Li interview on BookBrowse

Author Statement from Moying Li, Author of Snow Falling In Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution

I feel very fortunate that my memoir, Snow Falling In Spring will be published just a few months before the 2008 Olympic Games, which will be held in the city of my birth—Beijing.

As Pierre de Coubertin, the modern father of the Olympic Movement, once said, "The foundation of real human morality lies in mutual respect—and to respect one another it is necessary to know one another." The 2008 Beijing Olympics, and the time leading up to it, offers an unprecedented chance for China to interact and communicate with the rest of the world.

Overall, from the increasing media focus to the fast-growing commercial and cultural interactions, it is evident that the world has fixed its eye on China for quite some time. This attention will only intensify with the Summer Olympics. It’s estimated that 4.5 million people from around the world will visit Beijing in 2008, in addition to billions of others who will tune in via satellite television.

I believe that, in true Olympic spirit, a better understanding of human commonality and shared vision will emerge from this engagement. And I hope my book, in a small way, will help toward reaching that goal.

-Moying Li

For the full article, click here.

Moying Li's SNOW FALLING IN SPRING on Scholastic's Best Books list

BEST BOOKS
10 books for younger readers, 10 for older!

By Hannah Trierweiler | May/June 2008

Here’s something that no one but other teachers seem to understand: The best part of your job isn’t the summers off. It isn’t the shiny apples or the all-access pass to the teacher’s lounge. No, it’s the fact that you never have to leave the world of children’s books. It’s okay for you to read Ramona on the subway or Harry Potter on the Stair Master. When people ask what you’ve read lately, you won’t raise eyebrows if you say Eric Carle. You’re doing research, after all. No need to trade the wonderful adventures written for children for the grown-up side of the bookstore! With that in mind, we’ve pored through the offerings from the past school year to deliver the best new stories for every child—and for your beach tote, as well. Enjoy your stay in the worlds of Charlotte and Harriet, Despereaux and Stuart Little. It’ll be our little secret.

Best Memoir for Middle Schoolers
Snow Falling in Spring, by Moying Li.
Subtitled “Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution,” this is Li’s engrossing story about her life from ages 12 to 22—the tragedies faced by her friends and family, the harsh conditions of Chinese labor camps, and the refuge she found in books.

For the full article, click here.

Moying Li's, SNOW FALLING IN SPRING in San Francisco Chronicle

NOVEL, MEMOIR TELL STORIES OF CHINESE IMMIGRANTS
Susan Faust

Sunday, May 25th, 2008. --San Francisco Chronicle

Exclusion and exploitation characterized much of the Chinese immigrant experience in the United States, at least for a time. If allowed in at all, many newcomers were barred from economic, political and social opportunities. Still, since 1848, they have come by the millions, and a new book gives some reasons.

Troubles in southern China in the early 1920s come into sharp focus in The Dragon's Child: A Story of Angel Island by Laurence Yep with Dr. Kathleen S. Yep (HarperCollins; 134 pages; $15.99; ages 8-12). Drought, flood, insects, plague, bandits and warlords were commonplace, and men often found work elsewhere to support the women and children. In this tightly woven story, Lung Gon returns to his village from far-away San Francisco and leaves again with his 10-year-old son, Gim Lew Yep, in tow.

An author's note explains that the story is based on acclaimed Pacific Grove author Laurence Yep's family history, revealed in lengthy conversations with his father and the historical record. Dr. Kathleen S. Yep, Laurence's niece, uncovered the immigration file of his father and her grandfather while doing research in the National Archives.


For the rest of the article, click here.

Moying Li's SNOW FALLING IN SPRING in New York Post

REQUIRED READING
By BILLY HELLER
March 16, 2008 -- New York Post

Snow Falling In Spring

by Moying Li (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

From 12 to 22, Moying Li witnessed children turning in their parents for insufficient fealty to Mao and the Communist Party; city dwellers and intellectuals sent to the countryside for forced farm labor; marauding Red Guards. Her school headmaster hanged himself. But she survives to become of one of the first Chinese students to study in the US, and now lives in Boston. She tells the story with simple eloquence.

For the other books reviewed in this article, click here.

Moying Li's SNOW FALLING IN SPRING Starred Review in PW

Children's Book Reviews
-- Publishers Weekly, 2/25/2008

Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution Moying Li. FSG/Kroupa, $16 (192p) ISBN 978-0-374-39922-1

Recalling 2007's Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party, a fictionalized autobiography by Ying Chang Compestine, this memoir also offers a highly personal look at China's Cultural Revolution. The author is four years old when Mao initiates the Great Leap Forward in 1958, and she describes the transformation of the family's shared, once lovely courtyard as the neighbors follow orders to erect a brick furnace and feed it all their metals in an attempt to produce iron and steel. Everyone, including the child narrator, willingly cooperates, but the instructions are flawed and everything is ruined. The episode prefigures what follows: diligence is repaid with destruction, obedience with chaos, loyalty with treachery. Li effectively builds the climate of fear that accompanies the rise of the Red Guard, while accounts of her headmaster's suicide and the pulping of her father's book collection give a harrowing, closeup view of the persecution. Sketches about her grandparents root the narrative within a broader context of Chinese traditions as well as her own family's values, establishing a basis for Li's later portrayal of the individuals around her who respond to oppression with hope and faith in knowledge and education. B&w family photos reinforce the intimate perspective. Ages 12-up. (Mar.)

For other reviews in this issue, click here.