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Overview
This story takes place in modern-day China, where one girl's bravery overcomes circumstances that are extraordinary from a Western point-of-view.
On the day that her uncle takes her to be sold to the highest bidder, eleven-year-old Lu Si-Yan learns what it really means to be born a girl in her culture: to be worth nothing more than a little spilled water. Torn from her family, she is taken to the smog-wrapped tower blocks and factories of the big city. There she is destined to become a servant to a wealthy family, and someday to marry their son. But Lu Si-Yan is not going to spend her life in servitude. Determined to return to her beloved mother and brother, she embarks on an epic journey to escape and find her way home.
Synopsis
This story takes place in modern-day China, where one girl's bravery overcomes circumstances that are extraordinary from a Western point-of-view.
On the day that her uncle takes her to be sold to the highest bidder, eleven-year-old Lu Si-Yan learns what it really means to be born a girl in her culture: to be worth nothing more than a little spilled water. Torn from her family, she is taken to the smog-wrapped tower blocks and factories of the big city. There she is destined to become a servant to a wealthy family, and someday to marry their son. But Lu Si-Yan is not going to spend her life in servitude. Determined to return to her beloved mother and brother, she embarks on an epic journey to escape and find her way home.
Publishers Weekly
Grindley's (No Trouble at All) debut novel centers on narrator Lu Si-yan, whose humble yet happy life with her parents and younger brother in rural China is shattered by her father's sudden death. The novel begins as Si-yan's Uncle takes her on a mysterious trip, and the early chapters alternate with flashbacks to the days before and immediately following her father's death. In their grief, the family struggles to survive: their roof collapses, the vegetables Si-yan and her mother hope to sell at market are ruined when their rickshaw overturns and a drought causes their crops to wilt. Readers soon learn the destination of the mystery trip: Si-yan's uncle sells the 11-year-old into servitude, to help repay the family's debts. The child, likened to worthless "spilled water," becomes the property of a wealthy man in a smog-shrouded city who expects Si-yan to serve his family until she is old enough to marry his brain-damaged son. Much of the narrative labors to emphasize the low status of girls and women in society. The heroine's grueling days in her master's hapless household (brightened by the presence of a kind grandmother, who helps the girl escape) precedes an equally gloomy account of her life as an exploited factory worker, a job she hopes will enable her to return home with money for her mother. Though some poignant scenes give the narrative a lift, many readers will find this a rather plodding, tragic tale. Ages 8-12. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Grindley's (No Trouble at All) debut novel centers on narrator Lu Si-yan, whose humble yet happy life with her parents and younger brother in rural China is shattered by her father's sudden death. The novel begins as Si-yan's Uncle takes her on a mysterious trip, and the early chapters alternate with flashbacks to the days before and immediately following her father's death. In their grief, the family struggles to survive: their roof collapses, the vegetables Si-yan and her mother hope to sell at market are ruined when their rickshaw overturns and a drought causes their crops to wilt. Readers soon learn the destination of the mystery trip: Si-yan's uncle sells the 11-year-old into servitude, to help repay the family's debts. The child, likened to worthless "spilled water," becomes the property of a wealthy man in a smog-shrouded city who expects Si-yan to serve his family until she is old enough to marry his brain-damaged son. Much of the narrative labors to emphasize the low status of girls and women in society. The heroine's grueling days in her master's hapless household (brightened by the presence of a kind grandmother, who helps the girl escape) precedes an equally gloomy account of her life as an exploited factory worker, a job she hopes will enable her to return home with money for her mother. Though some poignant scenes give the narrative a lift, many readers will find this a rather plodding, tragic tale. Ages 8-12. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.From The Critics
Sold at the age of eleven by her uncle, who considers a girl child about as valuable as spilled water, Lu Si-Yan finds herself the slave/housemaid of the Chen family, who consider her to be an utter failure at her duties, but a potential future wife for their brain-damaged son. Mrs. Hong, the mother of Mr. Chen, gives Lu Si-Yan some money to escape, yet Lu Si-Yan has her money stolen and must work for a toy factory to repay the ferry fare. When she collapses at the factory after coughing up blood due to the horrible factory conditions and is sent to the hospital, she is reunited with the uncle who sold her, now regretful of his decision. Though the writing occasionally lapses in to dragging exposition, Grindley's work deftly demonstrates the harsh factory life, low wages, and grim reality many around the world face each day. Truly an interesting find, this novel will find a place in the hearts of those teens who care for the underdog and for those interested in modern day child labor abuses. 2004, Bloomsbury, 224 pp., Ages young adult.—Jennifer Judy
Children's Literature
Eleven-year-old Lu Si-yan's destiny is all but sealed from the moment of birth. After all, a girl born into a society already bulging at the seams is considered no more useful than spilled water. But her father does not agree, "I have the finest little dumpling of a daughter in the whole of China." Lu Si-yan does not know she is poor. Her father makes sure of it, "If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich." He finds joy even while struggling to coax marketable vegetables from the soil. Bumpy rickshaw rides, songs and games are all Lu Si-yan knows until her father is killed in an accident. Lu Si-yan, her grieving mother and bewildered younger brother are suddenly thrust into a challenging, unhappy world. Though dour Uncle Ba checks on them, he seems to expect failure. "He was like a vulture waiting to pick over the bones of some poor dead animal." One day, without explanation or apparent remorse, he sells Lu Si-yan into servitude to a wealthy family along with the promise of marriage to their slow-witted son. An even more unimaginable world comes to light as Lu Si-yan escapes only to be taken in by the unjust owners of a toy factory. Somehow she must find the strength to return to the world she once knew. Even though her eventual rescue by Uncle Ba is not convincingly explained, this story does an excellent job of revealing the shameless exploitation of many children today. 2004, Bloomsbury, Ages 8 to 12.—Francine Thomas