Wild Ginger-- Anchee Min

The Cultural Revolution is an interesting subject for young adult fiction, given the important role of young people in the Red Guard. I hadn’t really thought about that until I read Wild Ginger, which is set in Shanghai in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In addition to making this era more real in the minds of readers, the setting offers thought-provoking themes, including political education and the role of youth in social movements.

History plays a large role in Wild Ginger, but it’s got a little something for everyone—a self-made hero, a loyal friendship, and a smoldering (if slightly disturbing) love story. The elements are relatively simple but the combination is effective, and the book is solid and well-paced. Readers will identify with Maple, whose love and loyalty are repeatedly tested.

On account of her non-proletarian background, Maple is a target for the Red Guard at her elementary school. She thinks she is alone until Wild Ginger comes to her class—a new student with light-colored eyes. Wild Ginger and Maple form a pact to stand up for each other, but Wild Ginger is determined to join the political system that has oppressed her family. When Maple and Wild Ginger fall in love with the same man, each of them makes a choice with haunting consequences.

My main criticism of Wild Ginger is that falls into the same trap as many historical books: the “villain” in the story is conveniently on what we view, with contemporary eyes, as the “wrong” side of history. It’s so formulaic for the enemy to be a loyalist, slave-owner, opponent of women’s suffrage/ school desegregation/ etc. Equating the likability of characters with a hindsight view of their political choices is far too easy, and makes no sense considering that our dogmatic view of the world is tempered as we grow older (and to make sense of this book, readers must be at least that mature). We are not surprised that the baddie in this book is the school’s Red Guard leader, Hot Pepper. It is, however, an interesting variation on a theme when Hot Pepper is supplanted by Wild Ginger herself, although the latter embraces her role and political ideology with very different intentions.

The details about the regime and revolution are pretty tame here, but the love story not so much—just a heads-up for anyone recommending this book to a student. Wild Ginger was written primarily for adults, but I think the characters would speak more to high school readers.