{"product_id":"boyhood-verses-shaobin-yang-9798950183119","title":"Boyhood Verses","description":"\u003cp\u003eA lyrical coming-of-age novel set in rural China during the Cultural Revolution.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBefore he can understand the slogans crackling from the village loudspeaker, a boy learns the true language of his world: hunger at the family table; fear in the pauses of adults; and the bright, fragile pleasures of games, songs, and stories. In the mountain village where he grows up, political campaigns cross the threshold of home, and a father's past can become a danger to everyone he loves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs the boy moves through a childhood of poverty, sibling rivalries, village ritual, and public violence, he begins to understand how history enters a life-not as an abstract lesson, but in the body: in shame, silence, memory, and the need to be seen. Then Teacher Xu, a quarry blaster with hidden books and a private devotion to poetry, opens a different path: a language capable of holding what cannot safely be spoken.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBoyhood Verses is both an intimate portrait of a child's awakening and a haunting account of how political fear reshapes a family and a village. Rich in sensory detail and moral complexity, Yang Shaobin's novel asks what remains when innocence is tested by history-and whether memory and poetry can preserve a human tenderness that power tries to erase.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt once intimate and expansive, it evokes a world of kitchen fires, village games, family meals, loudspeakers, and dangerous silences-where the smallest objects carry the force of a vanished era.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor readers of literary historical fiction, translated Chinese literature, and novels of childhood, family, memory, and survival.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Shaobin Yang\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798950183119\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Bobcat Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/30\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 208\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.46lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.00h x 5.00w x 0.44d","brand":"Shaobin Yang","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50921637773567,"sku":"9798950183119","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/boyhood-verses-shaobin-yang-9798950183119","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}