Summary: In front of Baba’s eyes, they flung book after book onto the stone floor. One of them reached into a lower shelf for Baba’s rare books. Dragging them out by their silk strings, he yanked them open. “Please,” Baba pleaded, trying to free himself from the hands of his guard.”Don’t touch those.” The guard pulled Baba’s arms back and tied a rope around them. Then the soldiers dumped all our books into large hemp sacks that they pulled from the back of the truck. “The paper factory will turn this trash into pulp in no time,” they announced. When Lao Lao tried to plead with them, a soldier just pushed her away. Dragging the sacks through our gate, they flung them, one after another, onto the open truck. Then, hurling Baba on top of the bulging bags, the soldiers drove away in a cloud of dust, leaving my grandmother filled with sorrow . . 176 p., Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
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Eva Perry Mock-Newbery Club 
I can’t wait for you all to read this one and let me know what you think. This period of China’s history is very interesting to me – I couldn’t imagine growing up with all the changes she went through.
This is a very, very, good book. I found it very compelling to read – I didn’t want to put it down. It almost felt as if I was reading fiction sometimes, as this was told like a story. I don’t know how I could have gone through what she did. Everyone should definitely read this.
The story behind this memoir is very compelling. Because all of the events are real, you never know what will happen next. It made me appreciate some of the things I take for granted living here! The writing style was very matter-of-fact, which was appropriate for this type of non-fiction, but because of that it didn’t seem like a Newbery candidate to me. It could have included more details about the characters and their motivations.
I usually don’t like nonfiction, but I really liked this book, probably because it did read like fiction. For me, it is probably not my favorite book, but definitely one of my top 5, maybe even top 3.
This book is certainly original. While I did not really enjoy it, I think it was well written and distinguished. It is in my top six.
During our First Top 3 Vote this year, the following was part of a comment about this book:
“This book was a spectacular way to show how people reacted to the events of this time. The writing style described the events well, and left a huge impact on me…”