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Spilled Water review
- Date Published: 27th April 2020
I just had to post this wonderful review of my children’s novel for pre-teens/teens –
Published by Bloomsbury, Spilled Water won the Nestlé Smarties Gold Award in 2004. That was a big accolade at the time, and the book is still chosen regularly as a class reader for KS2. It tells the story of 11-year-old Chinese girl, Lu-Si-yan, who is forced to leave her family and life in a small village to make her way in the world. She winds up in domestic slavery for a cold-hearted couple and then as an operative in a brutal sweatshop. It’s her resilience, friendships and determination to get back to her mother one day that keep her going…
I based my story on a newspaper article about girls being sold into slavery in China – not a regular occurrence, of course, and the article was about a policeman who was working to get those girls back to their families. I began to wonder what it would be like to be in their situation and followed up with a lot of research into sweatshops. I even travelled to China in order to be able to furnish the story with authentic background details.
Reading Meg Readz review took me right back to the days when I was wringing my hands, trying to knit it all together.
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