Little Green

March 7, 2005
This memoir told in free verse poetry recounts Chun Yu's childhood experience until the age of 10, when Communist leader Mao died and "the revolution ended." The strongest poems offer an authentic childlike insight into the ideals and contradictions of the cause. When she was four for instance, she describes the propaganda being blared into her grandmother Nainai's home in the country, "The loudspeaker of the radio would keep on talking,/ but after a while we didn't hear it anymore"; she recalls her father's hopeful musing about the promises of Communism ("Wouldn't it be nice if all this came true?"); and in a poem called "Political Classes for an Eight-Year-Old," Little Green memorizes teachings from Mao's Red Book, though "I had no idea what this meant." In "Little-Person Books and a Story About the Forest," Chun Yu effectively contrasts the revolutionary tract forced upon young people with the lure of the contraband "children's books confiscated and burned at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution." However, because the poems offer episodic glimpses of Little Green and her family (much like the family photos that accompany the text), readers may feel distanced from the players, including the narrator herself. Still, Chun Yu delivers an unusual and at times memorable perspective on this turbulent period. Ages 10-up.