BEFORE
Activity One
Visit the following sites and blog a biography of the author. Summarize her major life events, and tell how the author was inspired to write the book. Do you have anything in common with the author? How might your life relate to hers?
Ji-Li Jiang Home Page
Author profile on LibraryThing
Author interview by Annie Wang on Chinese Culture Net
DURING
Activity Two
Use the following major character study guide to create a family tree (or series of interconnected family trees, perhaps) of the people in Ji-Li's life. Your design doesn't have to be perfect. Use either brackets or a traditional family tree style, or create a map that you understand even better. The purpose is that you understand the interconnectedness of the characters in Ji-Li's story.
Major Characters
Jiang Ji-li is a twelve-year-old girl growing up in China. She is happy, bright, and ambitious, but her fortunes change as the Cultural Revolution sweeps across China. She and her family suffer because of their class status.
Jiang Ji-yong is Ji-li’s younger brother. He becomes a target for bullies, also because of the family’s class status.
Jiang Ji-yun is the younger sister of Ji-li and Ji-yong.
Jiang Xi-reng, Ji-li’s father, is an actor who works at the Children’s Art Theater. He is held prisoner at the theater when false accusations are made against him.
Chen Ying is Ji-li’s mother. Once an actress, she now works in a sporting-goods store. She has occasional bouts of illness that make it necessary for Ji-li to take on more responsibility. Chen Ying writes a letter protesting the abuses to the family. The letter is discovered during a search by the Red Guard.
Grandma is Xi-reng’s mother. She lives with the family and helps take care of the children. Because her husband was a wealthy landowner, the whole family is given a poor class status.
Song Po-po, originally the children’s nanny and now the family’s housekeeper, lives in a room downstairs. When the political situation forces the Jiangs to let her go, Song Po-po continues to care for the family.
An Yi, Ji-li’s best friend, also suffers under the Cultural Revolution. Her mother is humiliated, and her grandmother is driven to suicide.
Du Hai is one of Ji-li’s classmates, a terrible student, and a bully. His mother is the Neighborhood Party Committee Secretary, ensuring that Du Hai has a good class status.
Chang Hong is a girl of excellent class status who befriends Ji-li.
Bai Shan is a boy who is ambitious and bright, like Ji-li. He shows interest in Ji-li, but she is afraid to respond to him.
Six-Fingers is a neighborhood man who is responsible for most of the searches and arrests.
Thin-Face is Ji-li’s name for a man who tries to get her to testify against her father. He leads the search of the Jiang house that discovers the incriminating letter written by Ji-li’s mother.
(Novel Study Guide original content copyright by Holt, Rinehart and Winston.)
AFTER
Activity Three
Focusing on a scene in the book that interests you, write a blog entry from another character's point of view.
