Customer Rating: 
Summary: A powerful, touching tale
Comment: Could things get any worse for Choon-yi, born with only one arm in a poor peasant family in China? She makes the best of the situation by creating and selling paintings. She is rightfully concerned when her beloved father accepts a perilous job building railroads in America. When she travels to see him, she endures heartbreak before discovering that her magical talent can help her father and many others.The beautiful oil paintings have a gloomy dark brown tint that adds to the melancholy mood of the text. This winner of the 1997 Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Medal effectively uses the subdued pictures to compliment the text. I found this to be a powerful book, even though it is written and illustrated with a gentle touch.
