White Lily

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

The expectations of one age collide with another in this novel about
life in a remote rural Chinese village during the reign of the last
emperor.

White Lily is a pampered little girl whose carefree childhood comes to
an abrupt end when she is forced to submit to the age-old custom of foot
binding. Nearly paralyzed with pain, Lily demands to know why she must
endure this unnecessary procedure. Her grandmother says that all girls
of good families allow themselves to be mutilated in this way in order
to look beautiful for their husbands, and that their tiny “tear shaped
feet” are also a sign of their obedience to traditional ways. Lily’s
agonized screams and pleas to be released from her bandages are ignored
by everyone except Lily’s older brother, who decides to risk his
father’s love and possibly even his very life to help his little
sister.

This elegantly written, powerful story is not for the squeamish.
Ting-xing Ye graphically describes White Lily’s agony as her tiny feet
are bent and broken by the foot-binding procedure. At the same time, Ye
does not moralize. Lily’s parents are not portrayed as monsters. Their
actions seem no more cruel and unloving than modern parents who might
insist that their children submit to painful and humiliating
orthodontics just to obtain a pretty smile. In a short afterword, Ye
explains how the tradition of foot binding became part of Imperial
Chinese culture. Highly recommended.