This narrative history of China's nineteenth-century Taiping Rebellion (which cost some twenty million lives) brims with unforgettable characters and vivid re-creations of massive and sometimes gruesome battles--a riveting, both sweeping and intimate portrait of the largest civil war in history.

"1890, Atlanta. By day, seventeen-year-old Jo Kuan works as a lady's maid for the cruel Caroline Payne, the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. But by night, Jo moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper advice column for 'the genteel Southern lady'"-- 1890, Atlanta. Jo Kuan works as a lady's maid for the cruel daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. But by night she moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper...

Twelve-year-olds Ambrose, Tom, and Frankie are transported to the boys' hometown of Freedom Falls, Ohio, in 1852 when Frankie blows her Romani family's magical trombone, and to return home they'll have to use both Morse code and the ancient form of divination known as the I-ching.

Based on the life of Chinese American student Mamie Tape and her fight to attend the all-white Spring Valley Primary School in her San Francisco neighborhood including her family's successful 1885 lawsuit before the California Supreme Court, one step in the long journey towards equality in education. Includes author's note with biographical and historical information.