Ribbons

by Laurence Yep

Overview

If you asked her, Robin would say that ballet means everything to her.

But no one's asking Robin. Not her parents, who can no longer afford ballet lessons because all of their money is going toward bringing Robin's Chinese grandmother to America. Not her grandmother, a demanding woman who can barely walk. And now, Robin is even losing touch with her ballet friends, who are moving on without her. It's hard for Robin to hide her resentment of this foreign grandmother who's changed her whole life. Then Robin uncovers a secret that leads to a new understanding of the many ways in which she and her tough old grandmother are alike.


"An appealing story that draws readers into the world of ballet, while offering an authentic and sometimes amusing look at the dynamics of Chinese-American family life."—School Library Journal

"Kids who appreciate a story about fighting for one's dream will enjoy Robin's saga."—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780698116061
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	10/28/1997
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	468,019
Product dimensions:	4.25(w) x 6.70(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	710L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Laurence Michael Yep is a prolific Chinese-American writer, best known for children's books. In 2005, he received the biennial Children's Literature Legacy Award for his career contribution to American children's literature. His distinguished novels for young people that deal with the Asian-American experience include two Newbery Honor Award winners, Dragonwings and Dragon's Gate. Mr. Yep, who has a Ph.D. in English, has taught at the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Barbara. He also is an award-winning playwright and has edited a collection of writings by Asian-Americans.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Ribbons

"An appealing story that draws readers into the world of ballet, while offering an authentic and sometimes amusing look at the dynamics of Chinese-American family life."—School Library Journal

"Kids who appreciate a story about fighting for one's dream will enjoy Robin's saga."—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

From the Publisher

Yep fumbles with this strained tale about an 11-year-old girl who yearns to dance. The star of her ballet class, Robin Lee has to give up her lessons at Madame Oblamov's academy when her mother imposes a draconian budget on the household, in order to save enough money to bring Robin's grandmother from China to the Lees' home in San Francisco. Robin gamely practices on her own, stuffing her feet into outgrown toe shoes and dreaming of her return to ballet school, but tuition money isn't available, even after her grandmother finally moves in. To make matters worse, Grandmother blatantly favors Robin's younger brother. In a forced parallel, Robin damages her feet (those too-small toe shoes), and only Grandmother can understand her determination to dance anyway: Grandmother's feet were bound in childhood and, despite immense pain, she unbound them in adulthood as a way of embracing modern values. A lot of the characterizations here verge on stereotypes: the indomitable Chinese matriarch, the unstoppable young artist with a dream, the impoverished but noble-hearted Russian ballet mistress. Combine this with the adults' extremist stances (Mom won't even let Robin keep the $20 her other grandmother sends for Christmas), and the novel reads as a lengthy contrivance. Ages 10-14. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 4-8-Yep once again explores the hazardous terrain that separates a Eurasian girl from her Chinese mother and grandmother. At 11, Robin has found her life's passion: ballet. Then she learns that her high-minded, impecunious parents can no longer afford lessons, now that they are bringing Grandmother over from Hong Kong. Refusing to give up the world she loves, Robin continues to practice in the garage on a cement floor, wearing toe shoes she rapidly outgrows. Meanwhile, Grandmother arrives, limping painfully with the aid of two canes. Though Mother forbids any mention of her disability, Robin's ignorance about bound feet strains credibility. The girl's wary hostility toward the old woman who so disrupts her life turns to active dislike, and then to understanding when she sees her uncovered damaged feet. Andersen's story "The Little Mermaid," awkwardly patched into the narrative, symbolizes the determination to transcend pain shared by Robin and her grandmother. The parents' inattention to their daughter's damaging practice sessions seems contrived to further the plot, and the murkier depths of mutilation in the cause of beauty are never sounded. If Robin's self-knowledge seems unnaturally mature, it is because she is telling about her emotions rather than letting readers feel them. This said, Robin's final epiphany, using the book's symbolic title to great effect, is genuinely felt, and genuinely moving. An appealing story that draws readers into the world of ballet while offering an authentic and sometimes amusing look at the dynamics of Chinese-American family life.Margaret A. Chang, North Adams State College, MA

School Library Journal

Robin, 11, is a gifted dancer, and she bitterly resents having to give up her ballet classes to help her parents pay for her lame grandmother to come from Hong Kong to live with them in San Francisco. To make things worse, Grandmother treats Robin with contempt. But when Robin discovers Grandmother's terrible secret--her grotesquely mangled broken feet--their relationship suddenly changes. Chinese foot-binding is dramatic social history, but the contemporary fiction is contrived, with purposive dialogue and coincidences and heavy metaphors. Robin's feet begin to hurt because she practices ballet on concrete floors with too-tight shoes; and, in case we still don't get the parallel, she reads the story of the brave little mermaid who wanted to walk even though it hurt. Yep has written novels with considerable depth and subtlety about the Chinese American experience, but here we get only glimpses of Robin's interracial family and her neighborhood friends; they never quite come together as people in a story. As in Yep's "Hiroshima" (1995), it's the fact that's compelling.

Hazel Rochman