Thrust into the hands of a foreign journalist by her illiterate mother, Ma Yan's diary describes her struggles to attend school in a drought-stricken corner of rural China--a place where education is the only hope for overcoming a life of crushing poverty. - (Baker & Taylor)
Wednesday, November 7
My father gave me and my brother a little money. My stomach is all twisted up with hunger, but I don't want to spend the money on anything as frivolous as food. Because it's money my parents earn with their sweat and blood.
I have to study well so that I won't ever again be tortured by hunger. . . .
In a drought-stricken corner of rural China, an education can be the difference between a life of crushing poverty and the chance for a better future. But money is scarce, and the low wages paid for backbreaking work aren't always enough to pay school fees.
Ma Yan's heart-wrenching, honest diary chronicles her struggle to escape hardship and bring prosperity to her family through her persistent, sometimes desperate, attempts to continue her schooling.
First published in France in 2002, the diary of ma yan created an outpouring of support for this courageous teenager and others like her -- support that led to the creation of an international organization dedicated to helping these children . . . all because of one ordinary girl's extraordinary diary.
- (
HARPERCOLL)
Booklist Reviews
Gr. 6-9. "I want to go to school, Mother. . . . How wonderful it would be if I could go to school forever!" Thirteen-year-old Ma Yan, a peasant in the drought-scarred province of Ningxia, China, evidently scrawled this message in frustration at having to work in the fields. According to a preface, Ma Yan's mother passed her daughter's plea to visiting French journalist Haski, along with journals documenting about nine months of Ma Yan's life. Haski published them in France and established a charity to assist similarly impoverished Ningxia students, to which Ma Yan has since promised 25 percent of her royalties. Some adults may be troubled by the diary's odd provenance and the purposeful annotations framing Ma Yan's rather meandering reflections. Nonetheless, the affecting story, extended with photos of Ma Yan and her family, will push readers to a new understanding of the hardscrabble existence endured by many, even as her brooding reflections ("My moods go up and down") underscore how much teens everywhere have in common. Some captions and photos not seen. ((Reviewed June 1 & 15, 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.
Publishers Weekly Reviews
This affecting volume collects diary entries penned by a Hui Muslim girl living with her family in a single-room house in rural China. In his articulate introduction, Haski explains how Ma Yan's mother came to hand him the diary that her daughter (now 16) kept when she was 13 and 14. Ma Yan's illiterate mother, while suffering from an ulcer, undertook a job of hard labor hundreds of miles from home to pay for her daughter's education. The girl's determination to excel at school figures prominently in the entries: "I must work really hard in order to go to university later. Then I'll get a good job, and Mother and Father will at last have a happy life." Though frequent restatements of this goal, numerous references to Ma Yan's fear of disappointing her mother and recaps of similar classroom incidents make for rather repetitious reading, they do underscore the girl's extraordinary resolve, generosity of spirit and resilience. Many of the details will open youngsters' eyes (e.g., Ma Yan went without food for days to save money to buy a pen; each weekend, she and her brother walked more than 12 miles to and from school, where they boarded during the week and often went hungry). This heartfelt diary inspired the creation of the Association for the Children of Ningxia (to which a portion of the book's proceeds will be donated), dedicated to helping others like Ma Yan stay in school. Ages 10-up. (June)
[Page 60]. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
School Library Journal Reviews
Gr 5-8-In 2001, while a French journalist was visiting remote Ningxia province in northwest China, a Muslim woman wearing the white headscarf of the Hui people thrust the diaries of her daughter into his hands. The three small notebooks described the girl's struggle to get an education despite extreme poverty. Each week Ma Yan and her younger brothers walked seven miles to school where they stayed until Friday night when they returned home. Often their only food was a small bowl of rice at midday. Only occasionally did they have a bit of money to buy some vegetables in the market or to catch a tractor ride home for the weekend. Ma Yan studied hard, but she did not feel successful unless she was number one in her class. When she didn't rank first, she was berated by her mother and made to feel guilty for her lack of effort. Her parents worked constantly to make a better life for their children, farming their own fields, harvesting crops for others, and collecting the plant fa cai from the steppes north of their home. The girl's feelings for her mother were powerful and complex, and she alternated between overwhelming love and rage at the injustices she suffered. While this book will not hold the interest of average readers because of its overly didactic tone, it does paint a vivid portrait of the daily life of a child in a part of the world seldom visited.-Barbara Scotto, Michael Driscoll School, Brookline, MA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Voice of Youth Advocates Reviews
In this inspirational diary, thirteen-year-old Ma Yan records her battle with poverty, hunger, criticism, failure, and guilt as she relentlessly seeks knowledge and a better life for her family and self. These two parts of her diary written in 2000 and 2001 begin in her last year of primary school and end in her first year of senior school. Living in China's "Region of Thirst," Ma Yan's family barely survives. Ma Yan is bullied by dorm heads, made fun of by storekeepers and neighbors, and berated by her physically ill mother, who is torn between giving in to her daughter's pleas to attend school and keeping her home to support the family and the sons' schooling. Ma Yan takes hope from the example of determined handicapped people and her parents who endure hardship for their children. Accepting the enormous pressure to lead her academic class, pull her family from poverty, and help her country, she walks twelve and a half miles to school on little or no food and dedicates almost every minute to studying or helping her parents. Desperate, her mother gives the journal to Pierre Haski, a French journalist visiting the village. In publishing this journal, Haski helps Ma Yan and other students through book royalties and the resulting Association for the Children of Ningxia (see http://www.enfantsduningxia.org). Haski's introduction and essays explain geographic, economic, and social contexts. Ma Yan's determined and steadily maturing voice, as moving as Anne Frank's, should be offered to readers of all ages.-Lucy Schall PLB $16.89. ISBN 0-06-076497-X. Photos. 4Q 4P M J S Copyright 2005 Voya Reviews.