Things aren’t looking good for fourteen-year-old Mehrigul. She yearns to be in school, but she’s needed on the family farm. The longer she’s out of school, the more likely it is that she’ll be sent off to a Chinese factory . . . perhaps never to return. Her only hope is an American woman who buys one of her decorative vine baskets for a staggering sum and says she will return in three weeks for more. Mehrigul must brave terrible storms, torn-up hands from working the fields, and her father’s scorn to get the baskets done. The stakes are high, and time is passing. A powerful intergenerational story of a strong, creative young artist in a cruelly oppressive society.
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“Narrator Zeynep Bilik presents fourteen-year-old Mehrigul, her little sister, and her grandfather with warmth, sweetness, and dignity…Bilik skillfully slips from beautiful accented English to Mandarin to Uyghur (including translation), which adds authenticity to the story. Mehrigul’s drunken, gambling father and depressed mother are aptly rendered in tones of anger and frustration. A moving author’s note in La Valley’s own voice recounts how she was inspired to write about the family after a personal encounter. Listeners of all ages will learn from Mehrigul’s simple tale.”
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