SuitabookMy Beijing
Nie Jun
- Reading
- Read one story at a time, pausing to notice how pictures and words convey the hutong community. Afterwards, discuss whether each extraordinary moment feels like magic, imagination, memory, or deliberately remains open.
- Themes
- Disability and ambition: Yu’er wants to swim in the Special Olympics, while her grandfather helps her practise despite not having a pool. She is described as having limited mobility and using mobility aids. The book?s stance on this remains unclear.
- Family memory and loss: Yu’er hears a special story about her grandparents, and a reported account describes her wanting to write to her dead grandmother with Grandpa’s help. Family remembrance appears important and may be tender or bittersweet, but the available details do not establish how grief is framed or concluded.
- Everyday life and magic: The stories take place in a Beijing hutong neighbourhood and include musical insects, a wild place and other hints of magic alongside ordinary community life. The boundary between ordinary experience, imagination and magic appears intentionally open, allowing readers to decide how literally to take extraordinary moments.
- Worth knowing
- Some stories may merit a check-in: Yu’er’s disability and wish to compete, references to bullying, memories involving a dead grandmother, and the shift between everyday life and possible magic. The ending and the full handling of these subjects remain unclear.