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Summary
Summary
Shirley Temple Wong sails from China to America with a heart full of dreams.Her new home is Brooklyn, New York. America is indeed a land full of wonders, but Shirley doesn't know any English, so it's hard to make friends. Then a miracle-baseball-happens. It is 1947, and Jackie Robinson, star of the Brooklyn Dodgers, is everyone's hero. Jackie Robinson is proving that a black man, the grandson of a slave, can make a difference in America and for Shirley as well, on the ball field and off, America becomes the land of opportunity.
Author Notes
Bette Bao Lord, Bette Bao Lord was born in Shanghai and came to the United States when she was eight years old. Her father, a British trained engineer, was sent to the U.S. in 1946 by the Chinese government to purchase equipment. The family was stranded, in 1947, when Mao Zedong and the communist rebels won the civil war in China. Lord received an M.A. from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and graduated with her B.A. from Tufts University. She married Winston Lord, former Ambassador to China and high Ranking State Department official.
Lord's first novel, "Spring Moon" (1981), which is set in pre-revolutionary China, was an international bestseller and an American Book Award nominee for best first novel. She has also written about her painful childhood experiences, as a Chinese immigrant in the United States post World War II, in the autobiographical children's book "In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson." The book tells how she struggled to learn English and be accepted by her classmates. "The Middle Heart" spans 70 years of modern Chinese history, ending with the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989. She has also written articles for such publications as the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The New York Times, and USA Today. She has also co-produced The People's Art Theatre's Beijing production of The Caine Mutiny, directed by Charlton Heston.
Ms. Lord has received the honor of an appointment by President Clinton to the International Broadcasting Board of Governors to oversee all U.S. non-military international broadcasting. She is also the chairperson the Freedom House, which promotes democratic institutions around the world. President Clinton said of Ms. Lord at one of the organizations conferences, "I'm honored to be introduced by someone who writes so powerfully about the past and is working so effectively to shape the future." She has sat on the Board of Trustees of The Freedom Forum, The Kennedy Center Community and Friends, and The National Portrait Gallery. She serves on the Advisory Council on Foreign Relations, Author's Guild, PEN, and the Organization of Chinese Americans.
Some of the awards Ms. Lord has received include honorary doctorates from seven universities, the U.S. International Agency Award for Outstanding Contributions, The Women of Honor Award from the National Council of Women, the New York Public Library's Literary Lion, the American Women for International Understanding Award, the Qingyun Award from the China Institute, the Distinguished American Award, and the Woman of the Year Award from Chinatown Planning Council.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-Christina Moore brings the character of Shirley Temple Wong to life as she narrates this tale of emigration. This recording of Bette Bao Lord's semi-autobiographical novel (Farrar, 1984) is excellent. The year is 1947, and Shirley and her mother sail from China to America to join her father who is an engineer in Brooklyn. The beginning chapters set in China will seem as foreign to American listeners as the classroom at P.S. 8 did to Shirley. America seems a world of wonder to Shirley, but makes her feel afraid, stupid and clumsy. Then Shirley discovers baseball. Playing right field, she no longer feels small and stupid. Shirley becomes a big fan of Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Baseball, America's pastime, helps Shirley to make friends and to be accepted in a strange and foreign land. There are many interesting and strong female characters, and people of many different ethnicities are portrayed. Moore does an excellent job of portraying Shirley, and changes her voice to give each character a distinct sound. The narration is well-paced and aural quality is good. This recording brings new life to an old favorite.-Stephanie G. Miller, Boulder City Library, NV (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A young Chinese arrival, self-named Shirley Temple Wong, finds a secure, bicultural niche in 1945-46 Brooklyn--as, it's suggested, did Chinese American novelist Lord (Spring Moon). The opening passages, meant to evoke a traditional Chinese household, have a slightly artificial, storybook quality; but once Lord gets Shirley to the Brooklyn neighborhood of look-alike houses, and into P.S. 8 where not two children look alike, this becomes an endearing, warming account of immigrant woes and joys. Her first afternoon, after Father has shown her around, Shirley insists on going to fetch cigarettes--""Rukee Sike""; she proudly procures them, from a substitute store (""Nothing to it at all""), then loses her way back (""What a fool she was!"")--but Father and his guests, finding her, still march her home triumphant. She is put into the fifth grade, not only knowing no English, but actually a year ahead of herself (asked her age, she held up ten fingers--because a Chinese child is one year old at birth); in resonse to a wink, she takes to blinking (a tic, wonders the teacher); introduced, she bows. And, from her general differentness, she's soon ignored, friendless; a failure, too, as ""China's little ambassador"" of her mother's imagining. (In a poignant bit, P.S. 8's second ""Chinese"" student proves to be from Chattanooga, and not to speak Chinese.) The turnaround starts with two black eyes from Mabel, ""the tallest and the strongest and the scariest girl in all the fifth grade."" Shirley doesn't tattle; Mabel befriends her--picking her for stickball, coaching her; and, from an inadvertent resemblance to Jackie Robinson ("" 'Cause she's pigeontoed and stole home""), she develops a passion for the Dodgers and an identification with Robinson (""making a better America,"" proclaims her teacher) that climaxes when she presents him with the keys to P.S. 8. But in a nice parallel with a Chinese tale, this identification also allows Shirley to wear ""two gowns,"" and to imagine her Chinese relatives clapping along with the P.S. 8 audience. It's a deftly worked resolution, inspirational message and all. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.