“It begins with a death.” From the first line in the book Gale Sears draws a reader into the story of a family torn apart under communist rule.  

Wen-shan is sent away to Hong Kong to escape the rule of Mao Tse-tung and at age fifteen and she is old enough to want some answers.  This book explains not only the answers to the character’s personal questions, but also the history and general culture taking place in 1970s China.  Any reader will take away a stronger knowledge of the ways of a country whose history is rarely told in the United States, as well as an understandning of the struggles an individual would have gone through at that time. 

Lenin may have called young people “useful idiots,” but Wen-shan is far from the definition of idiot.  Letters in the Jade Dragon Box explores her strength and determination in a way that appeals to men and women.  A reader must be willing to put in the effort to try to understand the book fully, but once they do they will be drawn in to an adventure unlike many fiction books today. 

This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Deseret Book

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language: None

Violence/Gore: Two characters are shot; forced starvation to death; character breaks another character’s hands; forced to kneel on broken pottery, resulting in injury; report of torture to death; second hand report of murder; foot binding; killing of sparrows; several instances of general physical abuse. 

Sex/Nudity: None

Mature Subject Matter:

Abuse/torture; child abuse; war; social conflict; separation; murder.

Alcohol / Drug Use:

None