Mountain Girl, River Girl.

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Adolescents who have purchased expensive athletic shoes manufactured in China may view them differently after reading Ye’s moving story about two 15-year-old girls who, seeking a life different from that of their parents, end up working in a shoe factory where their daily pay is $2.00 US.

Ye divides her story into two parts, the first told in alternating chapters by Pan-pan, who lives in a mountain village, and Shui-lian, whose home is a boat on the Yangtze River. Both girls have lost a parent: Pan-pan’s mother died after a botched operation while Shui-lian’s father drowned.

Pan-pan decides to seek a job in Beijing. To escape an unwanted marriage, Shui-lian accepts a recruiter’s offer to work in a Shanghai factory. However, the “recruiter” is actually a procurer, and Shui-lian is raped, and later arrested for prostitution. En route to Beijing, Pan-pan is robbed in Bengbu where she encounters Shui-lian, and the immediate friends decide to work in a nearby shoe factory.

Part Two, the novel’s longer section, focuses on the arduous and regimented three months during which the teens do piecework 12 hours daily with just one day off every two weeks. After rebuffing a superior’s sexual advances, Shui-lian is transferred to a dangerous working area where an accident removes part of her thumb. With Shui-lian unable to work, Pan-pan quits, and the two girls travel to Beijing where Ye ultimately provides them with a happy ending. Highly recommended.