MY NAME IS NUMBER 4

This abridged version of the author’s adult autobiography, A Leaf in Bitter Wind (1998), brings the horror of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution to vivid life by combining clean prose with gritty detail. Ting-Xing Ye was the fourth child born to a family of Chinese rubber merchants in 1952. Her parents died soon after the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” began, leaving upper-class Ting-Xing and her siblings at the mercy of Mao’s Red Guards, lower-class youth who terrorized citizens under the guise of destroying the “Four Olds”: culture, customs, habits and ways of learning. At 16, Ting-Xing was exiled to a prison farm due to a government policy intended to ease urban overpopulation. Frightened and alone, she used her limited free time to study, winning a coveted place at university after six years of hard labor and humiliating interrogation. Teens will be fascinated by the details of Ye’s impoverished adolescence, and inspired by her determination to continue her education against all odds. A worthy addition to the growing canon of Cultural Revolution literature. (Autobiography. YA)