Growing Up Under a Red Flag: A Memoir of Surviving the Cultural Revolution

Set in China at a time when few foreigners were allowed. Thus, all characters are of Chinese ancestry. The main characters are drawn distinctly and realistically. This story is a picture book memoir of the author's childhood during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

No bloodshed, but the threat of coercion and violence looms over the story, which may feel scary for some readers. Learning and speaking English is done in secret, later not at all when informants are everywhere, even living in Ying's own apartment. Neighbors are arrested and taken away for not "conforming." One illustration shows two people with bruised faces held by angry Red Guard members who are cutting their hair off. Another shows western items like sewing machines and space heaters that had been confiscated from people, in a pile being destroyed. Red Guard members read Ying's family's mail; when they read a letter from an American doctor and friend, they accuse Ying's father publicly of being a spy, trample their garden, trash their apartment, and arrest her father. With her father imprisoned, Ying helps get food while her mother works. When an older boy at a store steals her ration tickets, she runs after him, beats him with her shoe, and gets them back. An illustration shows angry Ying holding her shoe above the cowering boy with the tickets in his hand.