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The mayor of San Francisco, Gavin
Newsom, has chosen China Boy by Gus Lee for our city's book in the
"One City, One Book" campaign. This nationwide campaign calls on
each city's mayor to choose a book for his or her citizens to read. The idea
is that it will be a common experience that the citizens can share.
Newsom probably chose China
Boy because it portrays an interesting part of San Francisco's history.
It is a semi-autobiographical story about Lee's early childhood, from the
time he was about four until he was six or seven. The book takes place in the
1960's in San Francisco's Panhandle neighborhood. It gives voice to the
unusually small Chinese boy who lives in a bad neighborhood and the story
shows a cross section of San Francisco that probably would not otherwise be
seen. As a child, Lee was surrounded by several different cultures, including
his own Chinese heritage, the white, educated culture of his stepmother and
the poor, black culture of the kids in his neighborhood. This cultural
collision in such a small boy causes him to have the most confused speech,
a mixture of Songhai (his Chinese dialect), educated English and the Ebonics
of the neighborhood children. Much of the story is about these children, who
either become his friends or his enemies, neither title signifying that they
can understand this strange child or his eclectic speech patterns. He is the
smallest and the only Chinese boy in the neighborhood, and these
differences merit both his nickname "China Boy" and frequent
punching sessions that leave him bruised and bloody.
At first the reader will probably
be horrified by China Boy's life. He gains some support from his older
sisters, but his stepmother treats him terribly and his father is never
around. Meanwhile, he is being beaten to a bloody pulp by the other kids and
his speech is not developed enough to express his problems to anyone. But
China Boy does not seem to mind. He simply takes it. And this is what
changes the reader's initial horror to curiosity and wonder at this little
boy's strength. The way in which Lee is able to remember every detail from
that early point in his childhood is amazing. His writing style is so natural
that it feels conversational and the story feels like it is being told
instead of written. Lee doesn't miss a beat or skip an important detail of
his childhood, but the book is not too packed with information either. The
personable style and skill in his writing make the story read like fiction.
This impression is furthered by the fact that Lee does not attempt to write
his whole autobiography, but instead chooses a certain portion of his life
and writes about it in detail. Lee picks a beginning and an end point and
weaves the story consistently between them, creating a touching and
beautiful picture of his childhood.
The book is hard to put down, and
this difficulty is increased tenfold for a San Franciscan. The beauty of the
story mixed with the city's history, which includes portraits of the
panhandle, Chinatown and the Muni buses along with a variety of interesting
locals, makes China Boy a perfect choice for San Francisco's
population to read. Ultimately, the authenticity of the story is what makes
it so interesting. While reading it, one inevitably thinks, "You can't
make that stuff up." And it's true; you can't.
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