The Gale
by Mo Yan; illus. by Zhu Chengliang; adapted by Xiaoxiao Guan; trans. from Chinese by Ying-Hwa Hu
Primary, Intermediate    Simon    40 pp.
8/24    9781665930628    $18.99
e-book ed.  9781665930635    $10.99

In this moving, bittersweet picture-book debut by a Nobel Prize–winning Chinese author, a child learns an important lesson about resilience in the face of sudden changes. At seven, the protagonist is old enough to accompany Yeye (grandfather) into the fields near their rural home in China to help cut tall grass for animal feed. What starts out for the child as a carefree day playing outdoors takes a turn by late afternoon when dark clouds and a wind storm roll through. The Chinese folk art–inspired pictures are wonderfully evocative, transporting readers to the countryside as scenes shift from misty morning to bright summer afternoon, then panic-filled stormy climax and ambiguous ending. The images and matter-of-fact text weave a tight tale about how one moment can upend everything, which is foreshadowed early on when Yeye sings some old “strange—happy, yet sad” songs the child doesn’t understand. This semiautobiographical ode to intergenerational family love becomes even more poignant in the appended selection from the original short story, in which Mo writes lovingly about his own grandfather’s life as a farmer and the sad circumstances of his death.

From the ">September/October 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.