Chinese Cinderella

Rebel Voices- Disruptive Stories from Trailblazing Women - a new Puffin Classics collection, to celebrate International Women's Day 2023.

To me, writing was pure pleasure. It thrilled me to be able to escape the horrors of my daily life in such a simple way. When I wrote, I forgot that I was the unwanted daughter who caused her mother's death. I could be anybody I wished to be.

When her mother dies shortly after her birth, lonely Adeline is marked as 'bad luck' and treated as an outcast by her own family, shown kindness only by her grandfather and Aunt Baba, who encourage her to follow her dreams.

Adeline strives to win her father's acceptance by excelling in school, but instead discovers an escape in the friendships of her classmates and her talent for writing. For the first time, Adeline allows herself to dream of a real future as a writer and yearns to study in England with her brother - but it is a future she will have to fight with every ounce of strength she has to achieve.