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Summary
Summary
Nine-year-old Ling is very comfortable in her life; her parents are both dedicated surgeons in the best hospital in Wuhan. But when Comrade Li, one of Mao's political officers, moves into a room in their apartment, Ling begins to witness the gradual disintegration of her world. In an atmosphere of increasing mistrust, Ling fears for the safety of her neighbors and, soon, for herself and family. Over the course of four years, Ling manages to grow and blossom, even as she suffers more horrors than many people face in a lifetime.
Drawing from her childhood experience, Ying Chang Compestine brings hope and humor to this compelling story for all ages about a girl fighting to survive during the Cultural Revolution in China.
Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party is a 2008 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
Author Notes
Ying Chang Compestine grew up in China and now lives in California with her husband and son. She is the author of the young adult story collection A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts , as well as several picture books for children and cookbooks for adults.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Picture book and cookbook author Compestine (The Real Story of Stone Soup) turns to 1972 China as the setting for her first YA novel. Eight-year-old Ling, the spunky daughter of two doctors, lives in Wuhan, China; dreamy and idealistic, she often describes her world in metaphor (about her neighbor, Ling notes, "Mrs. Wong was fragrant and warm like a red peony, which always welcomed visitors"). But the lives of Ling and her family are disrupted when Comrade Li, an officer of the Communist Party, moves into their apartment. Difficulties mount as friends and neighbors disappear, Ling's father is arrested and she endures vicious tormenting at school because of her "bourgeois" background ("At times I wished my family was poor and my parents worked on a vegetable farm... so I could have friends. But if my parents worked on a farm, who would treat their patients?"). Although her father has been jailed, her family starved and their books burned, Ling fights to keep her long hair, a symbol of dignity and individualism to her, though her classmates see it as emblematic of Ling's "privilege." Ling survives on wit, hope and courage until the death of Chairman Mao, after which she and her mother have a joyful reunion with Ling's father. Readers should remain rapt by Compestine's storytelling throughout this gripping account of life during China's Cultural Revolution. Ages 10-up. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Middle School, High School) In Compestine's semi-autobiographical account of growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution, nine-year-old Ling's comfortable middle-class life rapidly deteriorates after Mao officer Comrade Li moves into their apartment and begins subjecting them to fierce anti-bourgeois propaganda and political terrorism. Conditions decline even further after Ling's father is imprisoned for treason. Narrator Long's pacing is compelling as she carefully builds to a horrifying crescendo. Her mastery of the characters is evident as she barks out Li's shrill, nasal commands while also conveying Ling's growing disillusionment in a milieu of distrust, betrayal, and turmoil. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Known for her picture books, Compestine grew up in China, during the Cultural Revolution, and her autobiographical novel tells the history from the viewpoint of the young, protected, privileged child who loses her innocence when political brutality invades her home. For nine-year-old Ling, things always seem clear. She's close to her loving father, who teaches her English and about freedom in America, but she feels distant from her tense, angry mother. During the course of four years, repression increases, and eventually the Red Guards arrest Dad as a class enemy. Ling feels the repression in other ways, too; she stands up to class bullies who try to cut off her bourgeois hair. Always she is sustained by memories of her brave father and his dream of freedom. In clipped lyrical sentences, Compestine's first-person narrative sets a naïve child's struggle to survive against betrayal and courage in one neighborhood and also the political panorama of spies and slogans.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2007 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-6-This story takes place in Wuhan from 1972 to '76, during the waning years of the Cultural Revolution. Nine-year-old Ling's doctor parents see their friends fall victim to the Red Guard and eventually they, too, suffer betrayal, job loss, hunger, and incarceration. Ling fears the cutting of her long (bourgeois) hair; she vows to keep it as an act of defiance, but loses it to lice instead. The simple sentences, episodic structure, and child's perspective convey just enough context of this complicated period to inform readers without bogging down the narrative. Ling's experiences (based on the author's own) seem authentic as she worries about her father's disappearance and tangles with school bullies, before the satisfying conclusion. This novel will introduce children to a time and place likely to have an exotic allure, while Ling's affection for her father and slightly tense relations with her mother humanize her and help readers empathize with her plight.-Patricia D. Lothrop, St. George's School, Newport, RI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
It's 1972 China, and nine-year-old Ling is the child of two doctors. Life isn't perfect, but, Ling is happy, excels at school and loves studying English with her father. Everything changes with the advent of Chairman Mao's regime. Luxurious items like flowered fabrics and pastries disappear. Anything associated with the West becomes suspect. Then a political watchdog moves into the family's apartment. Their upstairs neighbors, the Wongs, are denounced and arrested; Ling's parents are demoted; and the family lives in fear about the future. School is horrible; Ling becomes the target of the son of a government official and is mocked and beaten because she's seen as bourgeois. When Ling's father saves a political poet, he too is taken into custody, and Ling and her mother must survive alone as further horrors unfold. This child's-eye view of the Chinese Cultural Revolution is ultimately a tale of survival; lyrical yet gripping, accessible and memorable, it's based on the author's experiences. Certain to inspire discussion about freedom and justice. (author's note, historical background) (Fiction. 10-14) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Mother picked up a stack of old newspapers from beside the stove. Carefully, she checked every page before laying it around a stool, setting two sheets with Chairman Mao's pictures on the counter. Months earlier, a nurse had been sent to prison as an anti-Maoist just because she lit her stove with a newspaper page with Mao's photo. I noticed a cloth rice sack in the corner next to some herbal medicine bottles and folded clothes. "Why are you packing, Mom?" Without answering me, she led me to the stool and raked her hard-toothed comb through my hair. As each stroke yanked at my scalp, pain shot through my mosquito-chewed body. I clenched my teeth, not wanting to cry out. Were we going to a labor camp? Before knowing that they kept Father in the jail nearby, I had wished they would send us to his camp, wherever it was. Now I didn't want to leave. I wanted to be here in case they ever brought him back to the hospital. Something cold drizzled through my hair. Within a second, my scalp burned. "I hope this will kill the lice," Mother whispered. Her ox-bone comb scraped against my raw scalp. I couldn't bear any more of the pain and the itching. "You are hurting me!" I shouted. Mother stopped. Stiffening my back, I waited for her to scold me for raising my voice and showing disrespect. A moment later, she whispered, "Ling, your hair is too thick. The coal oil can't kill all the lice." She put down her comb and left the room. Didn't she hear me shouting? What was she planning to do now? Mother returned with a pair of scissors and Father's razor. "We have to shave your head." I jumped off the chair. "No! There must be another way!" She took a step back. "I don't know what else to do, Ling. I used up this month's ration. I even emptied the lamp. If I don't cut your hair, the lice will spread throughout the apartment." She tilted the blue oil cup, showing me it was empty. We received two cups of coal oil each month. Without the oil, we'd have to live in the dark for the rest of the month. Now I hated myself for being caught and for falling asleep on the dirty mattress. Seeing sadness in her eyes, I knew she wouldn't cut my hair if she could find another way. As far back as I could remember, she had told me that ladies should let their hair grow. Excerpted from Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party by Ying Chang Compestine All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
