RED SCARF GIRL: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution

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. © AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/NOV 99]