Growing Up Under a Red Flag
A Memoir of Surviving the Chinese Cultural Revolution
written by Ying Chang Compestine
illustrated by Xinmei Liu
Rocky Pond Books, 2024. 40 pages.
Review written April 17, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review
Growing Up Under a Red Flag is a memoir in picture book form, which makes it easy for children to grasp what’s going on. It’s geared to upper elementary kids.
The book begins with the author a little girl in China in the 1960s. Her parents were both doctors, and her father taught her English and told her stories of America and corresponded with a doctor in San Francisco.
My mother wasn’t always pleased with me because I didn’t behave like a traditional Chinese girl – speaking in a low voice, playing piano, and learning the fan dance. But my father loved my curiosity and strong spirit. He answered my endless questions and clapped with me when I sang English folk songs at the top of my lungs.
But then the Cultural Revolution came. They couldn’t speak English inside their home and listened to Voice of America in secret. And then a soldier moved into her father’s study.
They ended up burning all their English books and notes – but it wasn’t enough, and her father was arrested anyway.
The book shows the hardships of the years that followed, the scarcity of food and necessities, and the struggles without her father.
I did love that by the end of the book, her father was released, and she finishes with the whole family gathered years later in San Francisco. That way, despite the difficulties depicted, readers are left with the way things turned out good in the end. Which makes for a cheerier picture book. Kids can grasp the injustice of the hard times that happened, but the story ends on a happy note.
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/growing_up_under_a_red_flag.html
Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.
Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.
Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.
Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?