Throwaway Daughter
- Publisher
- Tundra
- Initial publish date
- May 2022
- Category
- Asia, Adoption, Coming of Age
- Recommended Age
- 14 to 18
- Recommended Grade
- 9 to 12
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780770429218
- Publish Date
- Apr 2004
- List Price
- $9.99
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781774880340
- Publish Date
- May 2022
- List Price
- $14.99
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
A Canadian teenager travels to China to explore her ancestry and search for her birth mother in a dramatic and moving YA novel.
Throwaway Daughter tells the story of Grace Dong-mei Parker, whose biggest concern is how to distill her adoption from China into the neat blanks of her personal history assignment. Aside from the unwelcome reminders of difference, Grace loves passing for the typical Canadian teen — until the day she witnesses the Tiananmen massacre on the news. Horrified, she sets out to explore her Chinese ancestry, only to discover that she was one of the thousands of infant girls abandoned in China since the introduction of the one-child policy, strictly enforced by the Communist government. But Grace was one of the lucky ones, adopted as a baby by a loving Canadian couple.
With the encouragement of her adoptive parents, she studies Chinese and travels back to China in search of her birth mother. She manages to locate the village where she was born, but at first no one is willing to help her. However, Grace never gives up and, finally, she is reunited with her birth mother, discovering through this emotional bond the truth of what happened to her almost twenty years before.
About the authors
by Ting-xing Ye and illustrated by Harvey Chan
William Bell was born in Toronto in 1945 and went to school there until he graduated from the College of Education in 1970. Until 2002 he was a high school English teacher and department head in Ontario. Bell also taught at the Harbin University of Science and Technology, the Foreign Affairs College (both in China), and the University of British Columbia. He holds a Masters of Arts degree in Literature and a Master of Education degree. Bell's Young Adult novels have been translated into nine languages and have won a number of awards. Bell lives in Orillia, Ontario, with author Ting-xing Ye.
