Colors Of The Mountain

"I was born in southern China in 1962, in the tiny town of Yellow Stone. They called it the Year of Great Starvation." In 1962, as millions of Chinese citizens were gripped by Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards enforced a brutal regime of communism, a boy was born to a poor family in southern China. This family—the Chens—had once been respected landlords in the village of Yellow Stone, but now they were among the least fortunate families in the country, despised for their "capitalist" past. Grandpa Chen couldn't leave the house for fear of being beaten to death; the children were spit upon in the street; and their father was regularly hauled off to labor camps, leaving the family of eight without a breadwinner. Da Chen, the youngest child, seemed destined for a life of poverty, shame, and hunger. But winning humor and an indomitable spirit can be found in the most unexpected places. Colors of the Mountain is a story of triumph, a memoir of a boyhood full of spunk, mischief, and love. The young Da Chen is part Horatio Alger, part Holden Caul-field; he befriends a gang of young hoodlums as well as the elegant, elderly Chinese Baptist woman who teaches him English and opens the door to a new life. Chen's remarkable story is full of unforgettable scenes of rural Chinese life: feasting on oysters and fried peanuts on New Year's Day, studying alongside classmates who wear red armbands and quote Mao, and playing and working in the peaceful rice fields near his village. Da Chen's story is both captivating and endearing, filled with the universal human quality that distinguishes the very best memoirs. It proves once again that the concerns of childhood transcend time and place.

A unique modern memoir of growing up in rural China, Colours of the Mountain is a powerful and moving story of supreme determination and extraordinary faith against the most impossible odds. Da Chen was born in 1962 in a town over 50 hours' train journey from Beijing. Persecuted because of his family's landlord status, Da was an easy target for the farmer-teachers and bullying peasant boys. Whilst his older brother and sisters were forced to work in the fields, Da tired of the chaotic schooling of the Cultural Revolution and found solace with a band of good-time thugs. Following the death of Mao, an academic meritocracy was reintroduced. Da determined to escape Ch'ing Mountain, where he ran around barefoot and there was no electricity and no future. Together with his brother Jin, who had been working the land since boyhood, he began to study day and night. His determination is staggering and inspiring. In 1978, at the age of sixteen, Da Chen took a bus and a train for the first time in his life and travelled to Beijing, to the best English language institute in China. A book about friendships, prejudice, familial love and academic striving, and of one man's escape from hunger, poverty and ignorance, Colours of the Mountain is an inspiring and eloquently recounted memoir.

Written by a young human rights worker, "Silence on the Mountain" is a virtuoso work of reporting and a masterfully plotted narrative tracing the history of Guatemala's 36-year internal war, a conflict that claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people.

“An anthology of nature writing by people of color, providing deeply personal connections to—or disconnects from—nature.” —NPR From African American to Asian American, indigenous to immigrant, “multiracial” to “mixed-blood,” the diversity of cultures in this world is matched only by the diversity of stories explaining our cultural origins: stories of creation and destruction, displacement and heartbreak, hope and mystery. With writing from Jamaica Kincaid on the fallacies of national myths, Yusef Komunyakaa connecting the toxic legacy of his hometown, Bogalusa, LA, to a blind faith in capitalism, and bell hooks relating the quashing of multiculturalism to the destruction of nature that is considered “unpredictable”—among more than thirty-five other examinations of the relationship between culture and nature—this collection points toward the trouble of ignoring our cultural heritage, but also reveals how opening our eyes and our minds might provide a more livable future. Contributors: Elmaz Abinader, Faith Adiele, Francisco X. Alarcón, Fred Arroyo, Kimberly Blaeser, Joseph Bruchac, Robert D. Bullard, Debra Kang Dean, Camille Dungy, Nikky Finney, Ray Gonzalez, Kimiko Hahn, bell hooks, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, Pualani Kanaka’ole Kanahele, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Jamaica Kincaid, Yusef Komunyakaa, J. Drew Lanham, David Mas Masumoto, Maria Melendez, Thyllias Moss, Gary Paul Nabhan, Nalini Nadkarni, Melissa Nelson, Jennifer Oladipo, Louis Owens, Enrique Salmon, Aileen Suzara, A. J. Verdelle, Gerald Vizenor, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Al Young, Ofelia Zepeda “This notable anthology assembles thinkers and writers with firsthand experience or insight on how economic and racial inequalities affect a person’s understanding of nature . . . an illuminating read.” —Bloomsbury Review “[An] unprecedented and invaluable collection.” —Booklist

A family, separated by duty and distance, waits for a loved one to return home in this lyrical picture book celebrating the bonds of a Cherokee family and the bravery of history-making women pilots. At the mountain's base sits a cabin under an old hickory tree. And in that cabin lives a family -- loving, weaving, cooking, and singing. The strength in their song sustains them through trials on the ground and in the sky, as they wait for their loved one, a pilot, to return from war. With an author's note that pays homage to the true history of Native American U.S. service members like WWII pilot Ola Mildred "Millie" Rexroat, this is a story that reveals the roots that ground us, the dreams that help us soar, and the people and traditions that hold us up.

A Time Magazine 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time selection!​ A Reader’s Digest Best Children’s Book of All Time​! This stunning fantasy inspired by Chinese folklore is a companion novel to Starry River of the Sky and the New York Times bestselling and National Book Award finalist When the Sea Turned to Silver In the valley of Fruitless mountain, a young girl named Minli lives in a ramshackle hut with her parents. In the evenings, her father regales her with old folktales of the Jade Dragon and the Old Man on the Moon, who knows the answers to all of life's questions. Inspired by these stories, Minli sets off on an extraordinary journey to find the Old Man on the Moon to ask him how she can change her family's fortune. She encounters an assorted cast of characters and magical creatures along the way, including a dragon who accompanies her on her quest for the ultimate answer. Grace Lin, author of the beloved Year of the Dog and Year of the Rat returns with a wondrous story of adventure, faith, and friendship. A fantasy crossed with Chinese folklore, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a timeless story reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz and Kelly Barnhill's The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Her beautiful illustrations, printed in full-color, accompany the text throughout. Once again, she has created a charming, engaging book for young readers.

A blind child questions all he encounters--a dog, wolf, elephant, mountain, bird, stream, and tree--about the color of the wind. Each responds differently, with a shape, color, smell, texture, or idea. Each page displays a visual and tactile palette of cutouts, textures, colors. It is a sensory experience that makes the invisible experiential, ending with the wind as the pages fly. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, Anne Herbauts expresses an original world in each of her books. Awake to the richness of the world, endlessly curious, and rigorous in her work, Anne has written and illustrated over twenty books.

In Shangyang Fang’s debut Burying the Mountain, longing and loss rush through a portal of difficult beauty. Absence is translated into fire ants and snow, a boy’s desire is transfigured into the indifference of mountains and rivers, and loneliness finds its place in the wounded openness of language. From the surface of a Song Dynasty ink-wash painting to a makeshift bedroom in Chengdu, these poems thread intimacy, eros, and grief. Evoking the music of ancient Chinese poetry, Fang alloys political erasure, exile, remembrance, and death into a single brushstroke on the silk scroll, where names are forgotten as paper boats on water.