Little Wen: "What Is the Chinese saying for This One?"

Britta Santowski is a freelance writer in Victoria, B.C.

This is a delightful little tale of Little Wen, a feisty female Chinese preschooler. Based on the author’s early childhood memories, the story takes place in China. This adds layers of cultural and historical detail.

Little Wen defies female behavioural expectations: she is not the quiet and obedient girl she is expected to be; instead, she gets dirty and climbs trees, tears her clothes, asks where she comes from, and tries to pee like a boy. Nope, needlework is definitely not for Wen, a child who can barely sit still for more than five minutes.

Throughout the story, Wen learns about Chinese sayings. Hence the subtitle, “What is the Chinese saying for this one?” Sometimes, though, “instead of getting Chinese sayings, Wen got spanks. In those days, parents spanked children to teach a lesson.” And when Wen commits her most heinous crime of peeing like a boy, her mother prepares to lash Wen with the bamboo stick handle of the feather duster. Wen’s request for a Chinese saying for this situation saves her.

Illustrated by Wei Xu, an award-winning artist, the book’s illustrations add greatly to the story and display Wen’s feelings and the responses of people around her. Simply drawn, these coloured cartoons illustrate Wen’s exuberance, her joy and her sorrow.

The reference to spankings and lashings caught me a bit off-guard, especially since the historical context is discussed only on the book’s dust cover and not in the actual story itself. Having said that, Wen is a most delightful character, through both the story and the illustrations. Recommended.