Bronze and Sunflower

Sunflower comes from the city and Bronze lives in a small village in China. But they become brother and sister. Bronze is mute, but Sunflower understands him, and he looks after her. This book is about Sunflower joining Bronze’s family and how they grow up together, losing crops to locusts, getting into fights with local kids, losing a grandmother, and playing with the family water buffalo.

This book is translated from the Chinese, and I found it to be a very slow read and lost interest a lot. It was very believable, but I prefer fantasy and more adventure right now. I liked reading about Bronze and his dad because sometimes they were nice to one another and sometimes they weren’t, which seemed very real to me. I also liked how Gayu (another child in the village) changed throughout the story.

There are no illustrations, and the chapters are very long, so it’s probably best for stronger, older, independent readers. I would have liked to have known more about Bronze since he was an interesting character. I think it would have been more interesting if Bronze or Sunflower told the story so I knew more about them and what they were thinking.