Girls of Many Lands: China: Spring Pearl

This story takes place in the China of 1857. A young girl's father dies, leaving her without a home. She is given a chance to move in with another family but, due to her rather low social status, she's not actually welcomed by the people who live at her new home.

It's also not a settled time in China's history, because the England had been at war with them once and was getting ready to go to war against China again. There's even politics on the local level which affect her new household.

Spring Pearl is a strong young female character in a time when strong young female characters were few and the weight of society helped to crush aspirations of young women of the time.

It is interesting to see the lives of what probably amounted to around a middle-class family of the time. The historical section at the end of the novel is also interesting,

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