This history of modern China covers the origins, founding, and development of the country’s Communist regime and examines the forces that are pushing the country–nuclear power and the home of a fifth of the world’s population–toward change.
Asia
Materials from Asia
A Little Piece Of Ground
During the Israeli occupation of Ramallah in the West Bank of Palestine, twelve-year-old Karim and his friends create a secret place for themselves where they can momentarily forget the horrors of war. Also written by Sonia Nimr.
The Elephant-Headed God And Other Hindu Tales
A collection of Hindu myths featuring gods and goddesses, kings and queens, heroes and beggars, angelic beings and demons.
Turtle Bay
Taro is fascinated by the strange actions of old Jiro-San, who sweeps the sand on the beach while waiting for the arrival of Japanese sea turtles ready to lay their eggs.
Kazunomiya: Prisoner Of Heaven
Princess Kazunomiya, half-sister of the Emperor of Japan, relates in her diary and in poems the confusing events occurring in the Imperial Palace in 1858, including political and romantic intrigue.
Hachiko: The True Story Of A Loyal Dog
Relates the true story of a dog who accompanied his master to and from a Tokyo train station for a year and, after his master died, continued to wait for him there every day for many years.
Bound
In a novel based on Chinese Cinderella tales, fourteen-year-old stepchild Xing-Xing endures a life of neglect and servitude, as her stepmother cruelly mutilates her own child’s feet so that she alone might marry well.
In The Village Of The Elephants
A young boy in India helps his father care for Mudumalai, an elephant who works to help clear forests, and protect croplands from wild elephants.
Teenage Refugees From Cambodia Speak Out
Introduces the history and political situation in Cambodia, and presents a variety of young refugees, who describe the reasons why they had to leave, their travels as refugees, and their experiences adjusting to a new country.
Binya’s Blue Umbrella
Binya, a young girl living in rural India, trades her leopard-claw necklace for a dainty blue umbrella, but the local tea shop proprietor wants the umbrella for himself.