Tag: Wai Chim

Freedom Swimmer, by Wai Chim

Ma is gone. I fought back tears, gripping the handle of the wheelbarrow tighter so her body wouldn’t tip out too soon. I was taking her to the river to join the other villagers who had passed. I didn’t dare look around – what if one of those bodies had surfaced, caught on a rock instead of being swept away by the current after the last rains? I could almost picture the head of some weeks-dead villager bobbing up beside me, all sunken cheeks and lifeless eyes behind paper-thin lids.

Having watched his parents die in a famine during the ‘Great Leap Forward’, Ming is left orphaned. Sharing a house with other village orphans, he must work hard to grow crops for his village and for the Communist government, with little time for himself. When the Party brings a group of city boys to work in the village, Ming forms an unlikely friend with Li, a charming, likeable city boy. Ming, taught to swim by his father, now teaches Li to swim and as they exchange their stories and their dreams they also start to wonder if there is a chance for freedom.

Freedom Swimmer is a tale of friendship set in 1960s China. Told from the dual perspectives of the two protagonists, the story explores both the effects of living under the fledgling regime, and the efforts of the freedom swimmers, people who attempted to swim from mainland China to Hong Kong, where they would find freedom.

Based on the experiences of author Wai Chim’s father, who made the freedom swim in 1973, Freedom Swimmer is a moving story.

Freedom Swimmer, by Wai Chim
Allen & Unwin, 2016
ISBN 9781760113414

Chook Chook: Mei’s Secret Pets by Wai Chim

Pip!

I was lying on my back in the garden, hidden among the colourful wildflowers, staring up at the big silver sky. It was a lazy spring afternoon and the clouds were drifting lazily through the air.

Pip!

Sitting up quickly, I strained my ears to listen again.

Pip!

I was lying on my back in the garden, hidden among the colourful wildflowers, staring up at the big silver sky. It was a lazy spring afternoon and the clouds were drifting lazily through the air.

Pip!

Sitting up quickly, I strained my ears to listen again.

Nothing.

I went to lie back down.

Pip!

Chook Chook: Mei's Secret Pets

Mei’s father has died and the family is mourning on their farm in rural China. Mei’s father kept animals but since his death, her ma refuses to have any animals at all. So when Mei finds two little chickens she knows she can’t tell her ma. She looks after them secretly, feeding and playing with them. But secrets are difficult to keep and her ma discovers them. She sells Mei’s beloved pets to the one-eyed butcher at the market. That should be an end to it, but of course, it is not.

When Mei’s father died, each member of the family grieves separately and differently. Mei’s adoption of the two chickens is her way of bringing her father close again. ‘Chook Chook: Mei’s Secret Pets’ is a lovely story about wanting and caring for pets. It’s also about loss and learning to live again through the eyes of a young girl. It paints a gentle portrait of rural China at a time of change and celebrates the characters who habituate markets. Readers are able to gain in insider’s view of a small community. Recommended for mid-primary readers.

Chook Chook: Mei’s Secret Pets, Wai Chim UQP 2012 ISBN: 9780702249464

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author

www.clairesaxby.com