A Girl Named Faithful Plum: The True Story of a Dancer from China and How…

by Richard Bernstein

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270 pages. AR Quiz #146036. 6.6BL. 11.0 points. Bergenfield Library owns one copy: (YA Biog Li). BCCLS owns about 12 copies.

Bergenfield_Library | May 13, 2013 |

This is an amazing story of perseverance and dedication to art. Even though it meant three days and two nights of torturous travel on filthy trains crammed with people, eleven-year-old Li Zhongmei was determined to get to Beijing to audition for the prestigious Beijing Dance Academy. She knew she had a very small chance of getting in - the school accepted only 12 girls and 12 boys from the whole country. And once she reached Beijing she realized that many people looked down on her for being a country girl. Even when she had gained entry to the school, some of her teachers thought that such an education was a waste on a country girl who would never amount to anything.

Li Zhongmei proved them wrong.

This is an inspiring true story of how one girl's love for ballet propelled her through an agonizing first year at the Beijing Dance Academy. She went on to become the best at the school and eventually became a professional dancer, touring Asia and settling in the United States. Although the writing is stilted and awkward in places, the plucky protagonist and the rags-to-riches story more than make up for it. Hand this to your young dancers and thespians.

This is a story likely to have wide appeal among the performance-minded and I'd recommend it to middle grade readers and teens both. (

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abbylibrarian | Mar 5, 2012 |

A fictionalized account of dancer Li Zhongmei's journey from the Chinese backcountry to the world stage,mainly focusing on her entrance into the Beijing Dance Academy and her first year at the school. I often did not like the main character--she came across as extremely self-centered--and the writer is definitely a journalist and not a novelist. This novel would have worked better as a piece of nonfiction, but it did give an interesting glimpse into the world of Chinese ballet.

LibraryGirl11 | Jan 19, 2012 |

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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0375869603, Hardcover)

In 1977, when Zhongmei Lei was eleven years old, she learned that the prestigious Beijing Dance Academy was having open auditions. She'd already taken dance lessons, but everyone said a poor country girl would never get into the academy, especially without any connections in the Communist Party of the 1970s. But Zhongmei, whose name means Faithful Plum, persisted, even going on a hunger strike, until her parents agreed to allow her to go. She traveled for three days and two nights to get to Beijing and eventually beat out 60,000 other girls for one of 12 coveted spots. But getting in was easy compared to staying in, as Zhongmei soon learned. Without those all-important connections she was just a little girl on her own, far away from family. But her determination, talent, and sheer force of will were not something the teachers or other students expected, and soon it was apparent that Zhongmei was not to be underestimated.

Zhongmei became a famous dancer, and founded her own dance company, which made its New York debut when she was in just her late 20s. In A Girl Named Faithful Plum, her husband and renowned journalist, Richard Bernstein, has written a fascinating account of one girl's struggle to go from the remote farmlands of China to the world's stages, and the lengths she went to in order to follow her dream.

(retrieved from Amazon Sat, 05 Jan 2013 02:23:07 -0500)

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Tells the true story of Zhongmei Lei, an eleven-year-old girl in 1977 who won one of twelve spots at the prestigious Beijing Dance Academy, and whose determination to remain in the school impressed teachers and students alike; and discusses how Zhongmei, whose name means Faithful Plum, went on to form her own dance company which debuted in New York when she was in her late twenties.… (more)

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