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A review by crizzle
Chu Ju's House by Gloria Whelan
5.0
This will be a book for the girls to read in a few years!!
Chu Ju is a brave heroine who does the right thing, even when completely terrifying. {SPOILERS}
She runs away at 14 in communist China to save her baby sister, the second-born. I love the journey the author takes us on, and the skills and lessons Chu Ju picks up along the way. From killing fish to feeding silkworms to harvesting rice paddies... and learning that there are good people everywhere, and even the 'bad guys' have some sort of redeeming quality if you look hard enough. (Although I'm not sure about her grandma...) I love that she came back to her family as an 18 year old woman, showing how successful she is and showing that she left out of love. I love the lesson that because she had schooling and learned to read, she was able to do so much in her life. I just love the whole girl empowerment vibe.
My one beef is the time frame of the book... all of a sudden, she'd been with the fishing family for a year within like a couple paragraphs. Then she was with the orphan girls for another year... but then when she was with Han Na, it said something about it'd been "nearly two years" since she left her home. What? I would've guessed at least 2 and a half years. But then later she was 18, and having left at age 14, depending on when she left that'd be at least 3.5 years. Anyway.
Chu Ju is a brave heroine who does the right thing, even when completely terrifying. {SPOILERS}
She runs away at 14 in communist China to save her baby sister, the second-born. I love the journey the author takes us on, and the skills and lessons Chu Ju picks up along the way. From killing fish to feeding silkworms to harvesting rice paddies... and learning that there are good people everywhere, and even the 'bad guys' have some sort of redeeming quality if you look hard enough. (Although I'm not sure about her grandma...) I love that she came back to her family as an 18 year old woman, showing how successful she is and showing that she left out of love. I love the lesson that because she had schooling and learned to read, she was able to do so much in her life. I just love the whole girl empowerment vibe.
My one beef is the time frame of the book... all of a sudden, she'd been with the fishing family for a year within like a couple paragraphs. Then she was with the orphan girls for another year... but then when she was with Han Na, it said something about it'd been "nearly two years" since she left her home. What? I would've guessed at least 2 and a half years. But then later she was 18, and having left at age 14, depending on when she left that'd be at least 3.5 years. Anyway.