The Little Chinese Steamstress

This book gives us a little insight into the Cultural Revolution and its “re-education” program that happened during 1970s in China. The main characters, two teenage city boys (ages 16 and 17), were sent to the country to be re-educated because their parents were doctors and were being persecuted. The education system (curriculum) was changed and many books were burned and banned during the Cultural Revolution. It is very interesting to see the teenagers’ eagerness and thirst for the opportunity to learn and the freedom to read. When they discovered that another re-educated city boy had hidden some “banned books”, the two teenagers began to find creative ways to obtain the books so that they may read and learn as well. One of the main characters even tried to use the “banned books” (the translated foreign classic novels) to educate the little seamstress, who he fell in love with, to make her become sophisticated. This education has quite an unusual result.
The book does give us a picture of the customs, beliefs, practices and the struggles of the rural society during that time, as well as the struggles of the teenagers during that growing time. This might be a book for the teacher to learn about the Cultural Revolution and the “re-education”, but I am not so sure about assigning this book for reading for the high school students.