Happy Birthday Bette Bao Lord!

It has been a while since I posted....freak October snowstorms can certainly throw off anyone's timing.  

Today is Bette Bao Lord's birthday....so many know her from her book In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson  which is wonderful but not the book I think of when I hear her name.

When I was young and had started reading voraciously I would grab any book that we had on our bookshelves.   One day I discovered a book that was my sister Ann's and was mesmerized by it.   It was Bette Bao Lord's first book as told to her by her sister Sansan called Eighth Moon: The True Story of a Young Girl's Life in Communist China.   I loved this book, I didn't really understand communism I just knew that it was about a beautiful little girl who got left behind and the struggles that she had.   I loved Sansan and always wondered (and still do) what happened to her.   I know that the book is basically out of print  but I think it should be back in print. It still has lessons to teach the world today.  Every student who is learning about China and communism should be required to read it.   It would also make a great companion piece to In the Year of the Boar so that children can see the juxtaposition of two sisters and how different their lives were.   Eighth Moon is one of my fondest book memories....