"In the hut, the cramped rooms reek of warm sweat, the foul smell of extinguished coal fires and packed earth. Crammed together, the comrades are already sleeping on the bare ground. Taking small careful steps, the young girl leaves the communal house."
"The music rises, free yet encased by the thick walls. Tonight marks the end of her fifth year in exile. ... pianos are criminal. Pianists are criminals. Schools are closed down. The Communist party is re-educating everyone."
How did they manage to bring a piano to this desolate place? How can this little girl practice each evening? Where will she get her music? And - most awful of all - what will happen when she is discovered?
Discover the answers in The Red Piano but be prepared to have your heart broken.
The Cultural Revolution was started by Chinese leader Mao Tstung in 1966 to make China's people follow his idea of the way they should live. ... Young people left school and became Red Guards, roaming the country to search for and destroy the 'four olds' - old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas. People, like the little girl in this book, were sent to the countryside to work with the peasants. (from the preamble)
"For seven years now, educated young people have been going to re-education camps, occasionally with enthusiasm but more often under duress. Their mission: to eradicate elitism through manual labour alongside poor farmers and by studying Chairman Mao's political works."
There are several things I miss now that I no longer work in my school library. I desperately miss reading aloud to groups of students. I miss sharing books with individual readers. And I miss creating lessons to unpack complex books like this one which I read to groups of our Grade Six students as a part of their work on Asian studies. Read this review for more plot details.
This extraordinary (I don't use that word lightly) story was inspired by the true story of girl who grew up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Her name is/was Zhu Xiao-Mei. I first read this book several decades ago but the story has lingered with me. I highly recommend this for readers aged 11+ and for all high school libraries.
Bookseller blurb: Stirring and inspiring, this picture book relates the story of a gifted young girl's passion for the piano in a time of historic turmoil. During China's Cultural Revolution a young girl is taken from her family and sent to a far-off labor camp. Forbidden to play the piano, she nevertheless finds a way of smuggling handwritten music into the camp and sneaking away at night to practice a piano in a secret location—until, one night, she is caught. Inspired by the amazing true story of international concert pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei, this acclaimed picture book poetically relates an astonishing story of perseverance set against a cataclysmic period of history.
I thought about this book all over again when I recently read Alias Anna because Anna is a musician and while music saves her it continually also threatens to expose her as a Jewish child. I also thought of Mao and the Cultural Revolution when I read Two Sparrowhawk's in a Lonely Sky by Rebecca Lim. And I thought of the similarities of the historical context from The Red Piano when I read My Brigadista Year by Katherine Paterson.
The Red Piano was published in 2008 so yes, it is out of print, but this book is sure to be in many school and public libraries. I picked up my copy at a recent charity book sale.
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