One girl too many . . .

When a girl is born to Chu Ju's family, it is quickly determined that the baby must be sent away. After all, the law states that a family may have only two children, and tradition dictates that every family should have a boy. To make room for one, this girl will have to go.

Fourteen-year-old Chu Ju knows she cannot allow this to happen to her sister. Understanding that one girl must leave, she sets out in the middle of the night, vowing not to return.

With luminescent detail, National Book Award-winning author Gloria Whelan transports readers to China, where law conspires with tradition, tearing a young woman from her family, sending her on a remarkable journey to find a home of her own.

ANNOTATION

In order to save her baby sister, fourteen-year-old Chu Ju leaves her rural home in modern China and earns food and shelter by working on a sampan, tending silk worms, and planting rice seedlings, while wondering if she will ever see her family again.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

One girl too many . . .

When a girl is born to Chu Ju's family, it is quickly determined that the baby must be sent away. After all, the law states that a family may have only two children, and tradition dictates that every family should have a boy. To make room for one, this girl will have to go.

Fourteen-year-old Chu Ju knows she cannot allow this to happen to her sister. Understanding that one girl must leave, she sets out in the middle of the night, vowing not to return.

With luminescent detail, National Book Award-winning author Gloria Whelan transports readers to China, where law conspires with tradition, tearing a young woman from her family, sending her on a remarkable journey to find a home of her own.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

A 14-year-old girl experiences hardships while growing up in China during the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. "Facing one test of courage after another, Chu Ju emerges as a heroine worthy of the rare and coveted rewards she ultimately receives," said PW's starred review. Ages 10-up. (Nov.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

VOYA - Angela Carstensen

In present-day rural China, Chu Ju is thirteen when her baby sister is born. By law, her parents are permitted only two children; they will never have the honor of a son. When Chu Ju overhears them planning to send the baby to an orphanage so that they can try again, she decides to run away. Chu Ju lives with a family of fisherman on a great river and works at a silkworm farm before finding a new home tending a rice paddy with the elderly Han Na and her son. When Quan leaves his mother behind for the big city, Han Na finds comfort in Chu Ju, who works very hard and reads Quan's letters to her. Chu Ju also befriends Ling, a neighbor who reads forbidden books and is full of new ideas. Chu Ju even makes the terrifying journey to Shanghai to pay the fine when Quan is imprisoned for lack of a work permit. When Han Na's health fails, she wills her land to Chu Ju so that she will always have a home, after making her promise to visit her family to ease their worry over her disappearance. This fast-paced, suspenseful story is told by an appealing protagonist. The reader is exposed to multiple facets of Chinese life, including the ongoing struggle between traditional and modern ways. From the beginning, it is easy to care about Chu Ju, and the happy ending is only what she deserves after her hard work, kindness, perseverance, and courage. VOYA CODES: 5Q 4P M J (Hard to imagine it being any better written; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2004, HarperCollins, 240p., and PLB Ages 11 to 15.

KLIATT - Claire Rosser

This story takes place in China of the last decade, the principal theme being the difficulties for a family that has two daughters. When Chu Ju's little sister is born, the grandmother threatens to destroy her, so Chu Ju runs away from home, hoping that her disappearance will allow the baby sister to survive. At this point, the story becomes a journey of adventure and growth. She finds work on a sampan, gutting and cleaning fish. Next she works as a silk worker, but it is an abusive situation where the business owner takes advantage of the cheap labor of orphans from a nearby orphanage—girls again. Finally, she finds refuge on a farm where the son of the family is yearning for city life; he hands over the farm work to her, allowing him to leave his loving mother behind as he seeks his fortune. Chu Ju eventually tells the truth to this woman, who accepts her as her own child, and Chu Ju returns to tell her real family that she is alive and doing well. It's a relatively simple story, with a view of the Chinese countryside and conditions of life in modern, changing China—perhaps only for those readers with a strong interest in the subject. KLIATT Codes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2004, HarperCollins, 230p., Ages 12 to 18.

School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-In present-day rural China, 14-year-old Chu Ju's mother gives birth to her second child, another girl. When her grandmother makes plans to sell the baby, Chu Ju decides to leave home. Perhaps then her family will keep little Hua and her parents will try again for a boy. After finding work on a sampan and becoming like a daughter to the fisherman's wife, she tells her story, and the woman is so horrified that she wants her to return home immediately. Forced to move on once more, the teen ends up in the household of Han Na, whose son wants to leave the rice paddies and go to Shanghai. Here Chu Ju proves her worth, making the paddy more productive using modern techniques she learns from her neighbor and friend Ling, caring for Han Na as she becomes increasingly weak, and rescuing her unfortunate son from jail in the city. Finally, having achieved a sense of self-worth, she goes back to see her family, but only to visit as she has made a life on the land bequeathed to her by Han Na. Whelan skillfully shows the mixture of past and present that is characteristic of rural China. She conveys the feelings of a nation on the brink of change, a country whose young people are trying out new ways of doing things, yet are clear about what traditional values are important to retain.-Barbara Scotto, Michael Driscoll School, Brookline, MA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Fourteen-year-old Chu Ju makes the wrenching decision to leave her peasant farm home and baby sister in post-Cultural Revolution China in order to give her parents one last chance at a pregnancy and a yearned-for son. She embarks on both a physical and self-actualizing journey. Over several years, the bright, already plucky teen finds assorted jobs, hardships, friends, acceptance, and, finally, the peace that comes with recognizing that she made the right, albeit painful, choice and forged a new life for herself. Told in very spare first-person, Chu Ju's journey becomes one for readers as well. Here they will meet a way of life not often portrayed in stories for the young. Readers, too, will readily accept Chu Ju's choice and be satisfied with the ending, in which she finds true love and inherits the titular house from a woman who loved her as her own daughter. Well-done and convincing. (glossary) (Fiction. 10-13)