CM Magazine: Share the Sky.

________________ CM . . . . Volume VI Number 13 . . . . March 3, 2000

Share the Sky.

Ting-xing Ye. Illustrated by Suzane Langlois.
Toronto, ON: Annick Press, 1999.
32 pp., pbk. & cloth, $7.95 (pbk.), $17.95 (cl.).
ISBN 1-55037-578-4 (pbk.), ISBN 1-55037-579-2 (cl.)

Subject Headings:
Kites-Juvenile fiction.
Villages-China-Juvenile fiction.
Immigrants-Canada-Juvenile fiction.

Kindergarten-grade 2 / Ages 5-7.
Review by Luella Sumner.

*** /4

excerpt:

"The day of her departure arrived. At the airport, a silver plane was waiting. It looked like a giant kite, but Fei-fei saw no strings attached to it. No wonder I don't feel like I'm flying, she thought after the takeoff. Yet questions soared and ducked in her mind. Will Mom and Dad remember me? Will they love me as much as Grandma and Grandpa do? And what will happen if they don't?"

Ting-xing Ye tells the story of a little girl, Fei-fei, who lives in China with her grandparents, loves kites, and is happy. But she must leave the life she knows to join her parents in far away America. It is a story of the courage it takes to face a strange new life, of the tolerance and understanding one needs to deal with different ways and customs, and of the love of family. Fei-fei loved to fly kites in China with her bigger cousin. The kites were made from rice paper and cloth, beautifully painted, and were so wonderful to watch. When she goes to America, she fears she will never fly a kite again, but her new teacher asks her to help her classmates make kites to fly. Fei-fei is thrilled and happy to feel welcome and useful in her new life in America.

The illustrations, rendered in watercolors, are full page size, vibrant with color and very pleasing to the eye. The pictures of the village in China are full of minute detail, the kites bright with imaginative design.

Author Ting-xing Ye, who was born in Shanghai and came to Toronto in 1987 as a visiting scholar at York University, is the author of two other books for children, Three Monks, No Water (1997) and Weighing the Elephant (1998). Illustrator Suzane Langlois is a freelance painter whose art has appeared in children's books, on book and record covers, and on posters. She also teaches drawing and painting classes.

Recommended.

Luella Sumner is the librarian at Red Rock Public Library, Red Rock, ON.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS ISSUE - March 3, 2000.