Chosen for the 2009–2010 Great Lakes Great Books Award ballot for grades six to eight

Starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal

"In its excellence in representing political upheaval through the eyes of a child, this book belongs next to Peter Sis's The Wall; in its directness, next to the work of Allen Say. The indefatigable energy of Chen's brush, though, is all his own."—Publishers Weekly