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231 pp.
| HarperCollins |
April, 2004 |
TradeISBN 0-06-050724-1$$15.99
|
LibraryISBN 0-06-050725-X$$16.89
(4)
4-6
Fourteen-year-old Chu Ju runs away from her village in southern China when her family's second daughter is born and her grandmother plans to give the baby away. The satisfying if implausible story (stoic heroine triumphs over poverty and harsh laws) is too formulaic to put us inside an individual mind and heart, or to convey a specific sense of place.