Chu Ju's House

As an educator who has taught courses on YAL multicultural literature to prospective English teachers in Hawaii, I had heard of Gloria Whelan and knew something of her repertoire. But I bought this short novel mainly out of a different sort of professional curiosity, namely, that I am writing a YAL book of my own, also set in China and told through the eyes of a female teen protagonist. Having lived in China for more than a decade, I was also somewhat leery about the depictions I would encounter.Whelan's novella did not disappoint in any substantial way beyond what another reviewer noted is a disjointed historical timeline. By the time this novella was published, rural China was already undergoing dramatic changes and the One Child Policy was no longer being strictly enforced. The preference for boys over girls certainly persisted, however, which is necessary to note considering that the plot of this book pivots on this traditional attitude. While I would have wished that Chu Ju had encountered an urban family wherein girls are equally valued, I can excuse the author's omission of this counterbalance. Whelan is not, after all, obligated to present a panoramic view of contemporary Chinese life.What impresses me is the extent to which the author has captured many of the core sentiments of common Chinese people--their relentless pragmatism, their tendency to be suspicious of change agents, and their constant prying (though these traits are not unique to this culture, to be sure). Whelan also captures the importance that rural Chinese place on family ties and preserving both family and personal face. Discerning readers can more readily sympathize with Chu Ju's plight knowing that her reaction to attitudes and events is highly believable. Middle school readers, for the whom the novella is intended, are frequently introduced to attitudes and emotions that might be unfamiliar to them unless they have experienced dire poverty themselves. The author tugs at the reader's heartstrings and our empathy for the protagonist comes to match that of the author, it would seem.At times, this novella struck too close to home for me, married as I am into a Chinese family which experienced much of what the author relates. As educators and many in the general public are now aware, those who write about a culture outside their own, have a special obligation to speak in an authentic voice. This first person narrative, in my few, meets that challenge quite effectively.Local color is for the most part convincingly detailed rather than presented in a cursory and obligatory manner. The use of pinyin--romanized Chinese words--adds rather than detracts from the credibility of the narrative, although perhaps more of an effort could have been made to describe the appearance, voice, and mannerisms of the characters. But Chu Ju and the other major characters in this book are anything but flat. The author more than makes up for any deficit in description in her rich detailing of the relationships between these characters. She also appears to avoid stereotypes and gratuitous topical issues, though the dangers faced by Ling for reading forbidden books is really a relic of the Cultural Revolution.I highly recommend this book to teachers in Grades 6 through 9. The vocabulary is controlled and the chapters short enough, as one might expect from a YAL book, to give even reluctant readers a solid sense of progress while reading it. The plot moves quickly and deftly, and the author is especially keen to include extended metaphors along the way. But teachers would do well to situate this novella historically before students begin reading it, for China has changed in some important ways dramatically over the last quarter century. As other reviewers have noted, the author refrains from thinly veiled political swipes but instead leaves government interference as bewildering to this village-raised protagonist, which it would have been.Except where noted, I found this novella worthy of five stars, and was reluctant to reach its conclusion, satisfying though it is.

I was surprised to like this book as much as I did. I was expecting the best part of the book to be the time period/subject matter because there are surprisingly few books for children that cover Communism and especially Communism in China. The premise that a girl would run away to keep her parents out of trouble when they had another baby girl born in the house was something I thought our students should learn about--especially since we have several adopted children from China in our grade level who were themselves victims of the one-child policy. But I was also concerned that such mature subject matter could be covered tastefully. Gloria Whelan did it.Not only was the book very real (and yet not scary), but it was a great piece of literature! The main character grows, reforms, and learns as she goes. The plot has movement and twists. There are metaphors and foreshadowing. The setting and geographical information included in the book was phenomenal--plants, animals, businesses, cities, rural life, weather... I also liked how she covered the religious background and changes without polemic. The kids learned a lot about traditional religion and Communism without feeling like they were being lectured to death. Every few chapters, there were all kinds of comprehension questions that could be asked to make my 4th-6th graders really /think/. And that's the point of literature, right?The whole story was likeable and full of suspense--we read it aloud slowly and the kids wanted to know what was going to happen next. We were not disappointed either, as the story has a good ending. Sometimes authors really bomb in that area, but this one had a really fitting ending--not tragic, not overly sentimental. It ended on a good note but still keeping with the real historical circumstances that China in the 70s would have been having. Way to go, Gloria Whelan. I think this story will appeal to almost everyone interested in this area.

Whelan was criticized for not having first hand information about the foreign settings and customs in her stories and only using second hand research. Even if the situations she describes are not common or even plausible, she writes beautifully, her stories are exciting and I appreciate the range of cultural and historical situations that she describes. I buy her books for an 11 year old granddaughter, but I read them first and I have enjoyed them thoroughly and appreciate the exposure my granddaughter is getting to other places in the world. This particular book describes one Chinese girl's attempt to deal with China's "one child policy," which does permit two children per family in rural areas. It is fine for one of the two children to be a girl, but when a second girl is born, and grandmother insists that she be given away so that the family can still have a chance to have a boy, Chu Ju boldly runs away to save her baby sister and in the course of her adventures encounters other slices of Chinese life--a houseboat on the river, the silkworm industry, rice paddy farming, and of course the repression of dissenting thought.

Read in daughter's book club. The era the book was written for doesn't seem to match the plot/setting, a bit confusing. Those growing up in China during the time the book was set indicated that the culture described is older and not what they experienced. Expect more from historical fiction for things like timeline matching culture and events. Unfortunate, otherwise a good book if it were set 40 years(?) earlier. I'd defer to residents of the areas described on the accuracy or lack-thereof though.