Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze, Newbery Winner 1933

Note: I somehow completely forgot to write this review. It has now been two months since I finished the book and... I had some brilliant ideas about what I was going to say in this post. But I've since forgotten most all but one of them.

Ahem. Young Fu's mother is a sass-master. (I'm fairly certain that is not a technical Chinese term)

I keep reading all these reviews about the women in this book being such flat characters, and obviously they were skipping over the parts where Young Fu's mother is absolutely brilliant. I wish I had a copy of the book here, but I'm telling you that most of her stuff was pure gold. Maybe I was just raised with the dry, subtle humor that she used. Because it wasn't in your face, rather it was the kind of thing that one says over a rice bowl, with one eyebrow raised and half a smirk being carefully concealed by chopsticks. She was hands-down my favorite character.

Looking back I also remember thinking that Young Fu is the luckiest fictional character of all time. He's basically King Midas without the unfortunate side-effects. Dude has a massive debt to pay off, runs away to the mountains and brings back snow. Sells snow as 'Dragon's Breath' and pays of his loans with enough left over for gifties.

I enjoyed the historical era that this was set in, gives a much different look at China than the 'Middle Kingdom' stuff one usually sees. This is a time of upheaval and transition, and the author shows that. Not only is the country in transition, but new peoples and customs are being introduced. Young Fu and his mother represent two sides of the conflict; neither being totally right, and neither being totally wrong.