This August, Michele Ebersole and Yoo Kyung Sung give their takes on “Rethinking conceptual otherness in history: Exploring untold histories in the U.S. and global communities.” They begin the discussion with A Diamond in the Desert by Kathryn Fitzmaurice. This week they consider Bronze and Sunflower by Cao Wenxua. In the coming weeks, they will discuss Gaijin: American Prisoner of War by Matt Faulkner and Lion Island: Cuba’s Warrior of Words by Margarita Engle.
MICHELE: This story takes place during a major sociopolitical movement and unrest in China, and I feel the tensions of the historical time through Sunflower’s father. The Cadre Schools and relationship between the village and city people also provide some historical context and explain how Sunflower and Bronze had different lived experiences within the same culture. When Sunflower is adopted by Bronze’s village family, I am particularly moved by the absolute love and pure adoration that everyone has for Sunflower. Despite living in poverty and almost starvation at times, she is well cared for in love by her adopted family. Her father, mother, grandmother, brother and Bronze take care of Sunflower at all costs, even sacrificing their own lives for her to be educated. This story depicts pureness and goodness through Sunflower and Bronze’s relationship. She represents a deep sense of hope for the family. With many of the stories that we have read for this month’s column, the characters experience extreme hardship and must overcome adverse situations and challenges. With this story, there are a number of traumatic events, such as the loss of Sunflower’s biological father and a village that gets ruined by a locust storm; however, I find the presence of Sunflower, her innocence and hope that she brought to the family and Bronze’s devotion and need to protect her at all costs heartwarming.
YOO KYUNG: The relationship between Bronze and Sunflower reminds me of Tetsu and Kimi or Horse and Kimi in A Diamond in the Desert. Kimi is a good-hearted girl who takes care of her (wild) animals, and Sunflower is a smart, loving girl. Even though Sunflower looks small and some of Bronze’s protection is necessary, this relationship is mutual in a sense that Sunflower is a reason why Bronze strives for his happy family. Kimi also appears to be a dependent baby sister, but Tetsu realizes how Kimi empowers him when he is a forever big brother to her. The story is beautifully translated into English. Helen Wong did a lovely job in her translation from Chinese to English. The poetically-beautiful English language creates the nuances of the story as a type of folktale instead of historical fiction, which is supposedly about the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Many young readers wouldn’t know the relevance of Cultural Revolution to the story until they read the author’s note. On the other hand, Bronze and Sunflower tells stories of city people and villagers without explicit political contexts. Today’s China suffers from extreme classism where the gap between super wealthy and the extreme poor grows wide. It causes serious social issues in poverty and family separations. People in the village show priceless value through sacrifice, wisdom, love, empathy, support, trust and hard-work ethics. Grandma is the total symbol of whole. The fact that Sunflower, who is from the poorest family, goes to school because of her (adopted) family’s support and love illustrates incredible hospitality.
When I learned Wenxuan won the Christian Anderson award, I expected more dynamics and drama in his book. His ways of telling stories remind me how Asian writing is different from Western styles of writing. At least, an aesthetic value on good writing could be culturally different. Bronze and Sunflower doesn’t jump into tension and crisis around Cultural Revolution soon (when readers are ready for it), but unpacks two families’ stories slowly with purposeful waiting time as if the readers should learn about two children as the author leads. I suggest classroom teachers read the book aloud like a small series book instead of assigning it as an individual reading assignment. The lengthy book has more to offer with its calm tone. The author’s note provides an interesting perspective about background information of the Cultural Revolution. Don’t intimidate young readers with its length.
Title: Bronze and Sunflower
Author: Cao Wenxua
Publisher: Candlewick
ISBN: 9780763688165
Date Published: March 14, 2017
This is the second installment of August 2017’s My Take/Your Take. To follow the whole conversation, check the WOW Blog every Wednesday.
- Themes: Bronze and Sunflower, Cao Wenxuan, Michele Ebersole
- Descriptors: Books & Resources, My Take/Your Take
“The poetically-beautiful English language creates the nuances of the story as a type of folktale instead of historical fiction, which is supposedly about the Chinese Cultural Revolution” (Yoo Kyung) — this reminds me of the picture book “Leather Shoe Charlie” (Balbusso & Kim, 2014), a story about the industrial revolution as seen through a boy’s eyes in Manchester, England. The way of writing and its illustrations contains kind of fairy tale tastes, instead of historical fiction, and that seems like romanticizing the industrial revolution.
When I was reading Bronze and Sunflower, I was reminded of Kazumi Yumoto’s The Friends (1996) and The Letters (2002) and Linda Sue Park’s A Single Shard (2008) — very Asian style of writing — the four-part organization of Chinese poetry including introduction, development, turn, and conclusion..
Thanks, Junko. I’d like to discuss Asian writing styles more in relation to students’ reaction to it. I found students’ reaction to story ending is very cultural too. Thanks!
From my personal reading experience, I did not pay too much attention to the Culture Revolution background in Bronze and Sunflower. Part of the reason is that Cao’s work is good in his use of language which forms a classic as well as nostalgic aesthetic style. He embraces creation ideas of tragedy aesthetics not only through plots and characterization but also through his wording and phrasing. I suppose that this language style weaken or shield the specific social background a bit. Chinese readers and reviewers focus more on the classic aesthetics of Cao’s novels and highly praise his novels’ language. The Grass House is a representative of it.
But after he won the Christian Anderson award, there is a reread movement of his novels including Bronze and Sunflower in China. Articles online written by serval reviewers criticizing Cao’s gender view: the way how he named the girl characters, the role of these girls in relationship with boys as well as the whole families and so on. I would say the problem of gender view lags behind in general Chinese children’s literature especially works with rural settings. Or in other words, there is a lack of sober-minded feminine awareness in general Chinese children’s literature. With the increasing awareness of gender consciousness in Chinese society, Cao’s works are regarded as the target for criticizing which is also pretty typical from this sphere.