China

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven by Susan Jane Gilman

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

I’m pretty certain I must have been an explorer—famous or otherwise—in a past life. Reading the globe-trotting adventures of others can entertain me for hours as I practically salivate over the descriptions of the sights, the culture, the food…you name it; hence my interest in Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven. Author Susan Jane Gilman details her story of what started as the trip of a lifetime for two recent college graduates, until something went terribly wrong.

Exploring Ancient China

The First Emperor

China's first emperor was named Qin Shi Huangdi. He brought together all the warring states and made them his subjects in 221 B. C. Qin is pronounced "Chin" and ever after the country was named China. He took the name Shi Huangdi which means "first emperor." Qin was an unusual man. He standardized writing, bureaucracy, scholarship, law, currency (money), and weights and measures. He built a capital and many roads. He connected the old walls along China's northern frontier to form the Great Wall, to protect his country from invaders. But he was also cruel. He killed and banished many people who disagreed with him and destroyed books from the past.

Count Your Way through China

By James Haskins and Dennis Hockerman (illustrator)

Go to catalog
Presents the numbers one through ten in Chinese, using each number to introduce concepts about China and Chinese culture.
Reserve this title

Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography

By Peter Conn

Go to catalog

This vivid biography of the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Good Earth recounts Buck's life in relation to the course of American and Chinese history and politics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Reserve this title

Time For Tea: Travels Through China and India in Search of Tea

By Jason Goodwin

Go to catalog
On a personal journey through the serpentine paths of the tea trade - from China to India to London- Jason Goodwin sets off to discover the history of tea from its ancient beginnings in the Far East to its influence today. He evokes both past and present in this lively and intriguing traveler's journal, as he traces the development of the tea trade from its origins in Canton factories through the Opium Wars and the settlement of British India to the state of the art today.
Reserve this title

Pearl Buck in China: Journey to the Good Earth

By Hilary Spurling

Go to catalog

“She was the child of American missionaries, but she spoke Chinese before she learned English, and her friends were the children of Chinese farmers. She took it for granted that she was Chinese herself until she was eight years old, when the terrorist uprising known as the Boxer Rebellion forced her family to flee for their lives. It was the first of many desperate flights. Flood, famine, drought, bandits, and war formed the background of Pearl's life in China… As a phenomenally successful writer and civil-rights campaigner, Buck did more than anyone else in her lifetime to change Western perceptions of China. In a world with its eyes trained on China today, she has much to tell us about what lies behind its astonishing reawakening.”

Reserve this title

Good Earth

in
Pearl S. Buck

"'I can only write what I know, and I know nothing but China, having always lived there,' wrote Pearl Buck. In The Good Earth she presents a graphic view of a China when the last emperor reigned and the vast political and social upheavals of the twentieth century were but distant rumblings for the ordinary people. This moving, classic story of the honest farmer Wang Lung and his selfless wife O-lan is must reading for those who would fully appreciate the sweeping changes that have occurred in the lives of the Chinese people during this century." (Book Description)

9781416500186
Adult

The House of Sixty Fathers

By Meindert De Jong, illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Go to catalog

Young Tien Pao is alone on his parents' boat when it breaks free of its moorings and plunges down river into Japanese occupied territory. Bravely, he starts the long journey back to his village. The boy and his pet pig, Glory of the Republic, meet sixty American pilots stationed in China during World War II who care for him. Based on a true story.

Reserve this title

Tiger

By Jeff Stone

Go to catalog

Five young warrior-monk brothers survive an insurrection and must use the ancient arts to avenge their Grandmaster.

Reserve this title

The White Swan Express: A Story About Adoption

By Jean Davies Okimoto, Elaine M. Aoki and Meilo So (illustrator)

Go to catalog

Four very different kinds of families are followed as they travel to China to pick up their adopted daughters. Perfect detail in both text and art allows readers to share the families' excitement and the bond formed on their journey.

Reserve this title