The
Colors of the Mountain
Da Chen
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Anchor (January 16, 2001)
ISBN: 0385720602
Overall Rating: 5 Stars 
Readability: 5 Stars
Content: 5 Stars
Buy
this book
Set in village in rural China in the early 1970s during the apex
of the Cultural Revolution, The Color of the Mountain portrays
the struggles of an ambitious child seeking those things that
so many people from the West take for granted: Food, education,
and employment. DA Chen, the storyteller and main character, is
born into the wrong family during China's Moa cultural revolution.
His family, being landlords, are looked suspiciously upon as being
anti-revolutionary. As a result DA is looked down upon, spat on,
and denied what limited opportunity that other are allowed. The
book progresses showing Da's struggles to simply stay in school.
Although he excels in all his classes, he is still subject to
scrutiny and eventually expelled. It is boggling how harsh neighbors
can be to a boy of only ten years. Nonetheless, DA perseveres,
however, and tells his tail of how he becomes the exception.
