Share the Sky

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is also the
author of The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek, and
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Hom

This imaginative story uses kites to link two civilizations and to
bridge a young girl’s journey across half the world. Fei-fei has been
left with her grandparents in a village in China while her parents are
working and saving their money in America “so that she [can] live with
them someday and have a better life.”

Grandfather makes kites, the most wonderful kites, gloriously
imaginative kites that soar. Helping her older cousin to fly Grandpa’s
kites is Fei-fei’s great joy as she waits to rejoin her parents.

Villagers’ misunderstandings about life in America puzzle Fei-fei as
she wonders if she and her parents even share the same sky. When the
time comes to rejoin them, Fei-fei discovers a kind teacher, classmates
who are also learning English, and friends who are happy to learn to
make kites.

Ting–Xing Ye’s story is warm, sensitive, and full of details that
bring to life Fei-fei’s experiences in both countries. Suzane
Langlois’s watercolor illustrations bring the cultures into sharp
focus and reinforce the range of emotions suggested in the text. The
double message of a “shared sky” and of Fei-fei’s gradual growth
toward independence comes across slowly and delicately. Highly
recommended.