希望树

by 沈雨仙

2030年，安琪独自搭乘飞机从纽约来到了她爸爸的故乡，马来西亚。一年前，安琪在她家后院找到了爸爸生前所留下的日记本。安琪看完整本日记后，决定飞往马来西亚，与素未谋面的奶奶和姑姑相认。同时，她也希望能找到那棵种在绿双城的“希望树”。她爸爸说，希望树下藏着一个秘密。 安琪与姑姑相认后，迟迟未与奶奶见面。奶奶是个固执的人，从不赞同爸爸与洋人结婚，更无法接受自己的孙女是混血儿。因此，姑姑劝安琪不要急着与奶奶相认。纵使受到姑姑的反对，安琪仍执意要到绿双城去找奶奶。此刻，安琪搭乘的巴士正从大都市吉隆坡前往绿双城，正朝着历史的方向前进……《希望树》带我们穿越时光隧道，跟着安琪的步伐从2030年一步一步走向过去。让我们与安琪一起走向她爸爸的故事，走向奶奶，走向希望树，以及藏在树下的秘密。 In the year 2030, An Qi takes a flight alone from New York to Malaysia to visit her father's birth place. A year ago, An Qi found a diary behind her father's backyard. She read the diary and decided to fly to Malaysia and reconcile with her grandmother and aunt. At the same time, she hopes to search for the wishful tree. According to her father, beneath the wishful tree, lies a secret.An Qi meets up with her aunt but not her grandmother. Grandmother is a very stubborn and conservative person, she cannot accept the idea of multiracial marriage, would not accept that her granddaughter is mixed. Her aunt advises An Qi to be patient to be able to meet up her grandmother. An Qi goes to "Liut Shuang Cheng" to look for her grandmother. Despite the objection, she takes a bus and heads down to "Liut Shuang Cheng".Let us follow her father's and grandmother's footsteps from the year 2030, the wishful tree and do not forget, the secret hidden beneath the tree!

Genres: China, Childrens

224 pages, Paperback

First published May 20, 2010

About the author

天蝎座，爱静。 曾任杂志主编、杂志记者、杂志编辑、辅导中心电话辅导员、报章专栏作者。 2010年，以首部长篇小说《星空下的约定》荣获第二届马汉儿童文学双年奖。之后，笔耕不辍，目前出版的长篇小说包括《希望树》《大齐，加油！》《我们之间零距离》《绿光三人行》《从现在到未来》《恶魔的交易》《255公里的距离》。

Reviews

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the 2nd novel of the author. I must say, she improved a lot. Her first novel was pointless, but that's for another post.

This novel, like any other novels published by the same publisher, is very G-Rated and suitable for kid. It's about an American girl (blonde, I might add) going to Malaysia, mainly to find her Malaysian Chinese grandmother, the "Tree of Hope" (or as the official English title, The Wishful Tree) her dead father planted right before leaving for USA, and the diary her father buried under the tree. Her grandmother is a traditional Chinese woman, who was against the marriage between her son and an American white girl, and against having a mixed blood granddaughter. It was a fast and light read.

This novel is focused on the granddaughter finding her grandmother and hoping that her grandmother would accept her, a Chinese mixed American blood girl as granddaughter. At the same time, searching for the Tree of Hope and the diary buried under it. I think the author tried to make the main character likable, but I couldn't like her, sometimes I dislike her, sometimes I don't, but I just couldn't like her. However, I teared at the end of the book. The part was very touching. I was into the book enough to tear up.

The story is set in the future. It also has a little bit of mystery/detective elements and tech-stuff, since the time setting is in the future. However, they blend very well, even though the mystery/detective part can get really random and out of the blue, it happens lesser later in the book. I think it would have been better if the author did not mention her detective-like personality and mind a few times. The author is quite creative though. And she described the (creative weird breads!)foods in the novel good enough to make me feel hungry. Yums!

I totally hate the fact that the author left a lot of stuffs unexplained though.