Guo Yue and Clare Farrow, illustrated by Helen Cann,
Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing
Barefoot Books, 2008.

Ages 8-12

Little Leap Forward loves playing with his best friend Little-Little by the river, flying kites or looking for mulberry leaves for his silk worms. He wants to be a musician like his father, who died when he was five, and he practises his flute-playing every day.  One day Little-Little traps a song-bird for him.  He puts it in a cage, gives it the name Little Cloud and waits in vain for it to sing for him.

Meanwhile, in the background are the beginnings of China’s Cultural Revolution.  As its impact becomes more and more unavoidable, the colors start to disappear from Leap Forward’s life. Then, as he looks at what is going on around him, he examines more closely his treatment of Little Cloud...

Leap Forward is deeply sensitive and his search for music in the everyday world around him gives a poetic nuance to his narration. His friends too are fully-rounded, likeable characters.  Nobody tells Leap Forward that his love for Little Cloud is stifling: they all recognise that it is something he has to work out for himself; and it is something that readers also have to discern. There is nothing clumsy in the writing to make readers feel preached at, even though at its heart the story is an allegory - an uplifting, gentle ode to freedom.   It is also a joy to find such a beautifully illustrated Chapter Book for older readers.  Using a rich and varied pallette, Helen Cann’s watercolors are luminous and dynamic. She contrasts well the increasingly threatened, enclosed indoor-spaces with the wide-open, carefree world of the river-bank.

Little Leap Forward is based on Guo Yue’s own childhood and he did indeed grow up to be a professional musician, now highly sought after all over the world.  In an afterword, Leap Forward’s story is brought up to the present.  There are some delightful photographs and a lovely description of how he met his wife, co-author Clare Farrow, as well as some poignant indications of the effects of the Cultural Revolution on his life. This is Barefoot Books first title in their new young fiction line of illustrated novels – judging by Little Leap Forward, we have a lot to look forward to.

Marjorie Coughlan
September 2008