Throwaway Daughter. Ting-xing Ye with William Bell. Toronto, ON: Doubleday Canada, 2003. 227 pp., pbk., $16.95. ISBN 0-385-65952-0. Grades 6 and up / Ages 11 and up. Review by Darleen Golke. *** /4

excerpt:

My parents and sister, even when we fight, have always treated me as if I came out of my mother's womb in Milford's Soldiers' Memorial Hospital, just like Megan did. I've always known I was adopted, but I always know I was a Parker, too. Maybe it's all connected to Mom's constant campaign to keep me in touch with my roots. I always hated hat. Maybe my parents should have told me they knew nothing about my birth mother. Maybe they should have made up a story that they had picked me up at an adoption agency in Beijing or somewhere and left it at that. I wish they had.

You can't be two people at the same time not without ending up in a mental institution. I'm not just Grace Parker. I've accepted that. I wasn't born at Soldiers' Memorial. I was unwanted by my so called real parents. That's the hard part, like a toothache that won't go away. They got rid of me. When I was little I fantasized that there was some romantic, adventurous, tragic reason why they couldn't raise me themselves and I was torn from their loving arms as woeful music played in the background. But, seeing girls I know get pregnant and give up their babies, hearing stories on the news about mothers and fathers who beat up their kids or neglect them so badly they're taken away by Children's Aid all that taught me that kids are sometimes not wanted, or even hated. Some parents would gladly get rid of their kid if they could. Mine had.

Abandoned on the steps of a Yangzhou orphanage after the China's "baby policy" made girl babies undesirable, baby Grace was adopted by the Parkers and brought to Canada. Into the baby's blanket the birth mother had tucked a piece of paper with "some marks in faded blue ink" providing her own name, Chun mei, and her daughter's name, Dong mei. When the Parkers went to China for their new baby, the orphanage official surreptitiously slipped them the information. Grace, "don't call me anything but Grace," Dong mei Parker hates that "sacred piece of paper" and "begged, argued, and threw tantrums" to avoid language and cultural lessons about her Chinese heritage. "I don't want to be Chinese, and I don't want a Chinese name," she insists. Raised in a comfortable and loving family environment, Grace resents being forced to learn Chinese, and she hates being reminded constantly of her heritage until the day she sees the television images of the Tiananmen Square Massacre of June 4, 1989. Thereafter her negative attitude to all things Chinese gradually changes. After high school graduation, her journey to understand who she is and to find her roots begins in earnest when she travels to China and painstakingly researches her family history and locates her birth parents.

     Ye structures the novel in seven dated and geographically defined sections. Grace's coming of age story unfolds not only from her first person narrative, but from the viewpoints of Chun mei, her mother; of Loyal, her father; of "Old Revolutionary Chen" Da li, her grandfather; of Jane, her adoptive mother; and briefly, of Mrs. Zia, the orphanage official. Each of the perspectives reveals details of the circumstances and seeks to explore the reasons that led to Grace's abandonment and adoption.

     The multiple viewpoints do, at times, interfere with the flow of the story and temper the emotional impact implicit in Grace's quest; however, the technique allows Ye to present historical and political information as she reveals the motives and passions of the characters. The impact of Grace's gender on her birth family that resulted in "Old Chen's" intractable determination to get rid of the girl baby serves as the catalyst that destabilized the family. As Grace discovers why she was "unwanted by [her] so called real parents," she comes to understand and appreciate "one hero," her mother, Chen mei. Young people who travel with Grace on her journey of discovery may add to their understanding of the history and culture of China.

     Ye adds Throwaway Daughter to her memoir, A Leaf in the Bitter Wind, the award winning White Lily, and three picture books.

Recommended.

Darleen Golke is a librarian in Winnipeg, MB.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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