Post by peghelminski on Mar 27, 2011 21:31:45 GMT -5
Dear ________:
I retired as MN Regional Advisor for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators early in 1998 after we learned that the little boy we had just adopted from China had multiple special needs. Ben required a host of specialists, therapies and surgeries that consumed my life for quite a few years. In 1999 we also adopted a little girl from China who is thankfully quite healthy.
Adopting kids from China was no accident for us. As a former university ESL tutor, the majority of my students were Chinese. From them I gained a great understanding and appreciation of Chinese language, culture, history and cuisine. So adopting from China seemed a natural for my husband and me.
Thanks to the internet, I have become a member of a support network of parents who have also adopted older and special needs kids from China. Through them, I have gleaned quite a bit of insight into what life is like in a Chinese Social Welfare Institute and how adoption feels from a kid’s perspective. I believe I have brought these feelings to life through the character of Mei Lin in my novel entitled, Daughter of a Thousand Pieces of Gold.
Rich with details of Chinese culture and tradition, this is a story about standing up for oneself, and about holding on to what is good in the past while at the same time making room for the future. For this reason, I feel the story holds broader appeal than for just the friends, classmates and families of the 5,000 Chinese children adopted into America each year. The story is so rich in Chinese cultural detail; it could also easily enhance Middle Grade classroom curriculum on China.
In fact, I do an annual China day presentation in each of my children’s classrooms and could also produce a teacher’s guide to the novel that would strengthen its lure to the educational market.
I have enclosed the first three chapters with this letter and hope this is the kind of manuscript of which you might want an even closer look.
Although I enclose a SASE for your reply, the easiest way to contact me is by e-mail PegHelminski@aol.com.
Thank you for your time. I hope to hear from you soon.
Best Regards,
Peg Helminski
Enc: SASE
Daughter of a Thousand Pieces of Gold
By
Peg Helminski
Summary
Mei Lin is the daughter of two people who, at first glance, appear to be a simple peasant farmer and a factory worker. Sent to the countryside to be re-educated during the Cultural Revolution, her grandfather was, however, originally wealthy and well educated. Secretly, her forward thinking parents and grandfather have passed on much of their family knowledge, such as traditional calligraphy forms and foreign language education to their only child.
Mei Lin is bright and capable. In fact, her father praises her as a daughter of a thousand pieces of gold—highest praise for a Chinese girl in this traditionally male-centered culture. It means she is as valuable as a son.
Initially, she struggles to deal with the implications of China’s famous one-child-family- planning-policy when her mother conceals a pregnancy and secretly gives birth to her little brother. The family works together to hide the fact from the corrupt village cadre, Liu Long Tong until the birth fine can be paid in full.
Mei Lin’s family embraces the changes of the New China under the economic reforms instituted by Deng Xiaoping. All seems to be going well for them until excessive spring rains unleash the wrath of the “river dragon” and her entire family is swept away in one tragic series of events.
As an orphan, Mei Lin must first free herself from the entrapment of the corrupt Mr. Liu and then learn a new way of living in a Social Welfare Institute with brothers and sisters formed by need, not birth. She forms deep bonds of caring with a young A-yi (auntie), another girl her own age and a baby who reminds her of her baby brother.
Eventually, Mei Lin is adopted by an American Family, and learns a new definition of family formed by love and choice. But, that is when her life gets really complicated. Nothing is familiar in America. All the rules and even her name have changed. She questions her choice to leave the Social Welfare Institute where at least the days followed a predictable pattern. Somehow, using the new, American rules, she must again prove to herself and to a new set of parents that she is indeed, a daughter of a thousand pieces of gold.
I retired as MN Regional Advisor for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators early in 1998 after we learned that the little boy we had just adopted from China had multiple special needs. Ben required a host of specialists, therapies and surgeries that consumed my life for quite a few years. In 1999 we also adopted a little girl from China who is thankfully quite healthy.
Adopting kids from China was no accident for us. As a former university ESL tutor, the majority of my students were Chinese. From them I gained a great understanding and appreciation of Chinese language, culture, history and cuisine. So adopting from China seemed a natural for my husband and me.
Thanks to the internet, I have become a member of a support network of parents who have also adopted older and special needs kids from China. Through them, I have gleaned quite a bit of insight into what life is like in a Chinese Social Welfare Institute and how adoption feels from a kid’s perspective. I believe I have brought these feelings to life through the character of Mei Lin in my novel entitled, Daughter of a Thousand Pieces of Gold.
Rich with details of Chinese culture and tradition, this is a story about standing up for oneself, and about holding on to what is good in the past while at the same time making room for the future. For this reason, I feel the story holds broader appeal than for just the friends, classmates and families of the 5,000 Chinese children adopted into America each year. The story is so rich in Chinese cultural detail; it could also easily enhance Middle Grade classroom curriculum on China.
In fact, I do an annual China day presentation in each of my children’s classrooms and could also produce a teacher’s guide to the novel that would strengthen its lure to the educational market.
I have enclosed the first three chapters with this letter and hope this is the kind of manuscript of which you might want an even closer look.
Although I enclose a SASE for your reply, the easiest way to contact me is by e-mail PegHelminski@aol.com.
Thank you for your time. I hope to hear from you soon.
Best Regards,
Peg Helminski
Enc: SASE
Daughter of a Thousand Pieces of Gold
By
Peg Helminski
Summary
Mei Lin is the daughter of two people who, at first glance, appear to be a simple peasant farmer and a factory worker. Sent to the countryside to be re-educated during the Cultural Revolution, her grandfather was, however, originally wealthy and well educated. Secretly, her forward thinking parents and grandfather have passed on much of their family knowledge, such as traditional calligraphy forms and foreign language education to their only child.
Mei Lin is bright and capable. In fact, her father praises her as a daughter of a thousand pieces of gold—highest praise for a Chinese girl in this traditionally male-centered culture. It means she is as valuable as a son.
Initially, she struggles to deal with the implications of China’s famous one-child-family- planning-policy when her mother conceals a pregnancy and secretly gives birth to her little brother. The family works together to hide the fact from the corrupt village cadre, Liu Long Tong until the birth fine can be paid in full.
Mei Lin’s family embraces the changes of the New China under the economic reforms instituted by Deng Xiaoping. All seems to be going well for them until excessive spring rains unleash the wrath of the “river dragon” and her entire family is swept away in one tragic series of events.
As an orphan, Mei Lin must first free herself from the entrapment of the corrupt Mr. Liu and then learn a new way of living in a Social Welfare Institute with brothers and sisters formed by need, not birth. She forms deep bonds of caring with a young A-yi (auntie), another girl her own age and a baby who reminds her of her baby brother.
Eventually, Mei Lin is adopted by an American Family, and learns a new definition of family formed by love and choice. But, that is when her life gets really complicated. Nothing is familiar in America. All the rules and even her name have changed. She questions her choice to leave the Social Welfare Institute where at least the days followed a predictable pattern. Somehow, using the new, American rules, she must again prove to herself and to a new set of parents that she is indeed, a daughter of a thousand pieces of gold.