Book Resume
for Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang
Professional book information and credentials for Red Scarf Girl.
5 Professional Reviews (2 Starred)
2 Book Awards
Selected for 4 State/Province Lists
See full Book Resume
on TeachingBooks
Readers won't need prior knowledge of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 1960s ...read more
- School Library Journal:
- Grades 5 - 9
- Publisher's Weekly:
- Ages 10 and up
- Booklist:
- Grades 6 - 10
- TeachingBooks:*
- Grades 5-12
- Word Count:
- 54,473
- Lexile Level:
- 780L
- ATOS Reading Level:
- 5
- Cultural Experience:
- Asian
- Genre:
- Biography
- Nonfiction
- Year Published:
- 1997
12 Subject Headings
The following 12 subject headings were determined by the U.S. Library of Congress and the Book Industry Study Group (BISAC) to reveal themes from the content of this book (Red Scarf Girl).
- Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976
- Juvenile Nonfiction | Biography & Autobiography | Historical
- Juvenile Nonfiction | History | Asia
- China
- China--History--Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976--Personal narratives--Juvenile literature
- Juvenile Nonfiction | Biography & Autobiography | Political
- Jiang, Ji-li
- Personal narratives
- Young Adult Biography
- History
- Juvenile Nonfiction | Family | General (see also headings under Social Topics)
- Juvenile Nonfiction | People & Places | Asia
5 Full Professional Reviews (2 Starred)
The following unabridged reviews are made available under license from their respective rights holders and publishers. Reviews may be used for educational purposes consistent with the fair use doctrine in your jurisdiction, and may not be reproduced or repurposed without permission from the rights holders.
Note: This section may include reviews for related titles (e.g., same author, series, or related edition).
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
Readers won't need prior knowledge of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 1960s to be compelled by this gripping description of the revolution's impact on the life of 12-year-old Ji-Li Jiang and her family, or to come away with an understanding of the ideas that fueled the revolution, and the personal price paid by thousands as those ideas were carried out by Chairman Mao and his government. In the New China of the revolution, family connections are all it takes to condemn someone, even if the "sin"of the family took place many years ago. As a result, because her grandparents were landlords, Ji-Li and her family are suspect. Ji-Li, a bright and eager student before the revolution began, starts to dread going to school, where Party loyalty now means more than academic achievement. She is humiliated when her name appears in a da-zi-bao, a type of propaganda poster that raises suspicions about people's actions without any basis of truth. And she is frightened when her father is detained for weeks by the government for refusing to confess to a "crime"he did not commit; indeed, he does not even know what it is they want him to admit to. Initially, Ji-Li had been swept up in revolutionary fervor, eagerly identifying "four olds"--old ideas, old customs, old cultures and old habits--to be destroyed. But now she is torn and confused. Her teachers tell her she is an "educable"child who can overcome her background if she denounces her family, but this, Ji-li realizes, she is not prepared or willing to do. Red Scarf Girl is Ji-Li Jiang's true story, not Orwellian fiction. Her voice is as real as the events it describes in this important, illuminating memoir. (Age 12 and older)
CCBC Choices 1997 © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 1997. Used with permission.
From School Library Journal
December 1, 1997
Gr 5-9-This autobiography details the author's experiences as a teenager during the Cultural Revolution. Though wanting to be devoted followers of Chairman Mao, Jiang and her family are subjected to many indignities because her grandfather was once a landlord. Memoirs of the period are usually larded with murders, suicides, mass brainwashing, cruel and unusual bullying, and injustices. Red Scarf Girl is no exception. Where Jiang scores over her comrades is in her lack of self-pity, her naive candor, and the vividness of her writing. The usual catalogue of atrocities is filtered through the sensibility of a young woman trying to comprehend the events going on around her. Readers watch her grow from a follower into a thoughtful person who privately questions the dictates of the powers that be. She witnesses neighbors being beaten to death, her best friend's grandmother's suicide, the systematic degradation of her father, and endless public humiliations. At one point, Jiang even enters a police station to change her name in a confused attempt to dissociate herself from her branded and maligned family. She makes it very clear that the atrocities were the inevitable result of the confusion and fanaticism manipulated by unscrupulous leaders for their own petty ends. Ultimately, her resigned philosophy attaches no blame: this is what happens when power is grossly abused. The writing style is lively and the events often have a heart-pounding quality about them. Red Scarf Girl will be appreciated as a page-turner and as excellent discussion material for social studies curricula.-John Philbrook, formerly at San Francisco Public Library
From Publisher's Weekly
Starred review from October 27, 1997
The passionate tone of this memoir, Jiang's first book for children, does not obstruct the author's clarity as she recounts the turmoil during China's Cultural Revolution. It is 1966, and Ji-li, a highly ranked student, exceptional athlete and avid follower of Mao zealously joins her classmates in denouncing the Four Olds: "old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits." Tables are turned, however, when her own family's bourgeois heritage is put under attack. Even when the 12-year-old's dreams of a successful career are dashed (as quickly as her opportunities to attend a prestigious high school and to join youth organizations), and she must watch in horror as relatives, teachers, neighbors and friends are publicly humiliated and tortured, her devotion to ingrained Communist principals remains steadfast ("It was only after Mao's death that I knew I was deceived," she says in the epilogue). Jiang paints a detailed picture of everyday life in Shanghai ("Almost every Sunday afternoon Dad wanted to take a long nap in peace, and so he gave us thirty fen to rent picture books") while slowly adding the dark strokes of political poison that begin to invade it. Her undidactic approach invites a thoughtful analysis of Ji-li's situation and beliefs. She astutely leaves morals and warnings about corruption and political control to be read between the lines. Ages 10-up.
From Booklist
Starred review from October 1, 1997
Gr. 6^-10. Ji-li Jiang was a model little Communist. Devoted to Chairman Mao, firm in her desire to be the best possible student so that she could further the aims of China, Ji-li was secure in her place as one of the foremost students in a Shanghai school, and just as happy as the eldest daughter of a theatrical family. Then in 1966, when Ji-li was 12, her world turned upside down. Chairman Mao launched the Cultural Revolution and suddenly everything formerly good was bad--including excellent students, such as Ji-li. To make matters worse, Ji-li's grandfather was a landowner, another black mark against her family. Jiang's simple narrative voice is always true to the girl she was as events in China swirled into chaos. She captures both the confusion she felt as the ground under her feet constantly shifted and her sincerity in trying to do the right thing for her ostracized family and her country. The book's climax, in which Ji-li is forced to choose between her future and her father, whom the government wanted her to denounce, will affect readers, who have been carefully led to this point by Ji-li's chronicle of humiliations, beatings, and relocations. Young people who have little knowledge of Chinese history may have trouble at first understanding a society so different from ours, but Jiang's engrossing memoir transcends politics and becomes the story of one little girl trying to survive the madness. ((Reviewed October 1, 1997))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1997, American Library Association.)
From AudioFile Magazine
Twelve-year-old Ji-li, devoted Communist follower of Mao Zedong and Liberation Army hopeful, is sympathetically portrayed by Christina Moore. As the memoir opens, Ji-li is believable in her intelligence, her self-esteem, her love of family and Communism. She is just as credible in her growing discomfort, fear, and despair when, in 1966, China's Cultural Revolution calls into question first her ancestry, then her parents' politics, and finally her own loyalty. Ji-li's voice, that of an impressionable child striving to please, grows more and more desperate as the Revolutionaries accuse her family of capitalist crimes, arrest her father, destroy her home. While Moore's first-person narration is faithful to Ji-li throughout, her voicing of other characters is occasionally forced or repetitive. Nevertheless, the reading is exceptionally engaging. T.B. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine
2 Book Awards & Distinctions
Red Scarf Girl was recognized by committees of professional librarians and educators for the following book awards and distinctions.
4 Selections for State & Provincial Recommended Reading Lists
Red Scarf Girl was selected by educational and library professionals to be included on the following state/provincial reading lists.
Canada Lists (1)
Alberta
- ELA Authorized Novel and Nonfiction Reading List, Grade 9
United States Lists (3)
North Carolina
- 2010-11 NCSLMA Middle School Battle of the Books
- NCSLMA Middle School Battle of the Books, 2013-2014
- NCSLMA Middle School Battle of the Books, 2016-2017, Grades 6-8
Primary Source Statement on Creating Red Scarf Girl
Ji-li Jiang on creating Red Scarf Girl:
This primary source recording with Ji-li Jiang was created to provide readers insights directly from the book's creator into the backstory and making of this book.
Listen to this recording on TeachingBooks
Citation: Jiang, Ji-li. "Meet-the-Author Recording | Red Scarf Girl." TeachingBooks, https://school.teachingbooks.net/bookResume/t/5694. Accessed 31 January, 2025.
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This Book Resume for Red Scarf Girl is compiled from TeachingBooks, a library of professional resources about children's and young adult books. This page may be shared for educational purposes and must include copyright information. Reviews are made available under license from their respective rights holders and publishers.
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