Little White Duck

A Childhood in China

By: Andrés Vera Martínez, Na Liu

Narrated by: Book Buddy Digital Media

Length: 25 mins

Publisher's summary

The world is changing for two girls in China in the 1970s. Da Qin - Big Piano - and her younger sister, Xiao Qin - Little Piano - live in the city of Wuhan with their parents. For decades, China's government had kept the country separated from the rest of the world. When their country's leader, Chairman Mao, dies, new opportunities begin to emerge.

Da Qin and Xiao Qin soon learn their childhood will be much different than the upbringing their parents experienced.

©2012 Andrés Vera Martínez and Na Liu (P)2018 Lerner Digital™

Critic reviews

"Graphic memoirs are a cornerstone of the graphic-novel format, but rarely are they written with children as the primary audience. In eight short stories, Liu has done just that, giving younger readers a glimpse into her life growing up in China just after the death of Chairman Mao. By linking her stories to a teaching by Confucius that says one learns in three ways - by studying history, by imitating others, and through one's own experience - Liu shows how her parents survived the famine during China's Great Leap Forward, how the death of soldier Lei Feng influenced the behavior of Liu and her sister, and how a trip to the countryside to visit her relations helped Liu realize just how privileged her life in the city was. The stories are vivid even without Martinéz's bold artwork that evokes both traditional Chinese scrolls and midcentury propaganda posters. The result is a memoir that reads like a fable, a good story with a moral that resonates." (Booklist Online)

"This title travels through the childhood of Na Liu in Wuhan, China in eight delightful stories. The stories take Na and her sister from the death of Chairman Mao to a visit to her grandmother and relatives who live in the countryside. One of the stories explains the various symbols used during Chinese New Year. The China of her childhood is a different country from her parents'. This is a beautiful introduction to a China that few of us will ever understand." (Library Media Connection)

"Wife-and-husband team Na Liu and Andrés Vera Martínez use a graphic-novel format to bring Liu’s childhood in 1970s Wuhan, China, to life for contemporary children. Much will seem the same - family life with a younger sister, school, a visit with a semi-scary grandmother - but the particulars in the eight vignettes included here make all the difference." (The Horn Book Magazine)