Red Scarf Girl - A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution (Hardcover, Turtleback School & Library ed.)

In 1966 Ji-li Jiang turned twelve. An outstanding student and leader, she had everything: brains, the admiration of her peers, and a bright future in China's Communist Party. But that year Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, and everything changed. Intelligence suddenly became a crime, and having wealthy ancestors meant persecution -- or worse. Over the next few years, Ji-li and her family were humiliated and scorned, and lived in constant terror of arrest. Finally, with the detention of her father, Ji-li was faced with the most difficult choice of her life. She could denounce her father and break with her family ... or she could refuse to testify and sacrifice her future in her beloved Communist Party.

Told with simplicity and grace, this is the true story of one family's courage and determination during one of the most terrifying eras of the twentieth century.