Snow Falling in Spring by Moying Li

Snow Falling in Spring by Moying Li

Most people cannot remember when their childhood ended. I, on the other hand, have a crystal-clear memory of that moment. It happened at night in the summer of 1966, when my elementary school headmaster hanged himself.

In 1966 Moying, a student at a prestigious language school in Beijing, seems destined for a promising future. Everything changes when student Red Guards begin to orchestrate brutal assaults, violent public humiliations, and forced confessions. After watching her teachers and headmasters beaten in public, Moying flees school for the safety of home, only to witness her beloved grandmother denounced, her home ransacked, her father's precious books flung onto the back of a truck, and Baba himself taken away. From labor camp, Baba entrusts a friend to deliver a reading list of banned books to Moying so that she can continue to learn. Now, with so much of her life at risk, she finds sanctuary in the world of imagination and learning.

This inspiring memoir follows Moying Li from age twelve to twenty-two, illuminating a complex, dark time in China's history as it tells the compelling story of one girl's difficult but determined coming-of-age during the Cultural Revolution.

Snow Falling in Spring is a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

During the chaotic Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Moying Li grew up in Beijing, China. Moying was mostly self-taught during this time, following the guided lessons and reading lists that her father, a well-known screenwriter, was able to give to her from a hard work farm. Moying left Beijing, where her family still lives, in 1980 to pursue graduate studies in the United States, and for the next 10 years she immersed herself in what she had always sought, the unrestrained pursuit of knowledge, thanks to a generous scholarship and a plane ticket from Swarthmore College. Snow Falling in Spring is her first book.