Charles Dickens, and Jack London. He realized
through reading that each of us is unique and we all
need to pursue our own destiny. Ange found joy in
the books he read at night, and took his first tentative
steps on the path to becoming a visual artist - a
journey we witness through his luminous illustrations
in this picture book. His message is one of hope oppression cannot squelch individuality and the
power of dreams. The book ends with a brief
epilogue on later events in his life and a seven-page
section describing “China’s Cultural Revolution.”
Throughout the story, Ange’s dreams and struggles
symbolize the bewildered reaction of that generation
to history: How were they to face their traumatic past
and heal psychological pains?
Ange’s artistic style, characterized by bold angles
and vivid, saturated colors, hints at the feel of old
propaganda posters, and seems perfectly matched to
the surrealism of the period he is depicting. The
digitally rendered reproductions of period posters,
black and white family photos and intriguing images of
archival artifacts (stamps, seals, and old books) are
reminiscent of everyday life during Mao’s Cultural
Revolution. They evocatively describe what was like to
be swept up in political turbulence, and speak
eloquently about his emotional reactions.
Sharing Multicultural Literature with Students
Multicultural literature provides a gateway
through which readers can enter into a character’s
world. The school curriculum should include a
variety of texts from diverse cultures (Frye, 1957).
Integrating these books into literacy curriculum will
not only enhance students’ critical thinking skills and
cross-cultural awareness, but also fosters students’
personal connections with literature, such as empathy
and compassion. For an authentic immersion in the
textual world, readers’ imaginations of ethnic
characters’ actions and motivations can be built upon
and verified against readers’ contextual knowledge of
the characters’ world (Cai, 1995). And “possession
of knowledge or insight—historical, philosophical,
psychological, political … may yield a specific angle
of vision or powerful organizing frameworks”
(Rosenblatt, 1938, p. 147). Teachers may find it
useful to open their students’ minds to other systems
of values, an