This absolutely phenomenal book about the author’s growing up during the Chaos period of China’s history and the Cultural Revolution is jaw-droopingly powerful. Her writing style is simple, analysis of emotion is scant, but the stark narrative hits hard. Most amazing: the story starts when the author is only four, but she brilliantly reconstructs her childhood experience, and despite an environment very different than anything I’ve ever personally experienced, she is still a child and one can recognize curiosity, innocence and the amazing resilience of all children in her. Warning, this is not a happy read; many die in terrible, ironic and sad ways, the treatment of “black families” (families that have been deemed to be against the cultural reform of China) is never-endingly frustrating, but still the author’s family lives and strives to stay together. A very important and hauntingly beautiful book. I’ve read some other memoirs from this period in China, and this one, I know, will stay with me. ( )

This vivid memoir chronicles the early years of Yimao Wu, a child whose intellect, resourcefulness, and instincts help her to survive the chaos of China’s Cultural Revolution. This frank depiction of life within a “black-family,” a family whose patriarch must suffer the torture and indignity of re-education because he is believed to hold Western ideals, illustrates the astonishing degree of suffering and injustice millions of Chinese children experienced during China’s Great Leap Forward. Wu’s remembrances infuse her story with unexpected beauty and humor, surprising and rare moments when Wu is able to experience a taste of what it is to be a child. The graceful, unsentimental writing draws readers into memories that seem both honest and impossibly brutal. This book is recommended to any teen or adult reader who is interested in history and awed by the human will, the ability to persevere just for the chance to live. ( )

Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos by Emily Wu - a memoir. Emily's parents were considered enemies of the state and their reeducation was brutal and longtermed. With each wave of reordering in Maoist China the family moves up and down in society living separately in reeducation camps or together in university housing, getting a living wage or starving and working for nothing, getting an education and working in the fields.

The author Emily Wu begins with her memories of meeting her father in a concentration camp when she is three. The story continues with her memories and materials located through dairies and visits to the area she grew up in. Book ends as she becomes 17 and begins college. Told in the voice of the child this book gives a picture of hardship in China suffered by the families of families considered dangerous to the government. ( )