My Mother

鲤鱼Sep 2025

3.0

Word count: 10K words
Chapters: 14

Summary

From a child's perspective, this book fondly retraces the life journey of the author's mother, portraying a strong, optimistic, wise, and warm woman of the new era who came of age amid the historical progress of the People's Republic of China.

Born in wartime, the mother lost her father in early childhood and was forced to drop out of school due to poverty, yet she never lost her thirst for knowledge. As she followed the course of New China's development, she underwent a series of transformations—from a village girl to an industrial worker, a grassroots cadre, a rural teacher, and later a businesswoman riding the tide of reform and opening-up. While working diligently, she also taught by example and raised several children, making her an excellent mother as well. She witnessed firsthand the successive tides of change from old China to new China. Her story is at once a moving family chronicle and a sweeping history of the spiritual growth of Chinese women in the new era.

Editor's review

My Mother looks back on her life through her child's eyes, placing a woman born in wartime, who lost her father young and endured poverty and interrupted schooling yet never stopped thirsting for knowledge, within the historical course of New China's construction and reform and opening-up. Her identity shifts repeatedly—from village girl to industrial worker, grassroots cadre, rural teacher, and later into business during the reform era—but the thread of hard work and teaching by example in raising her children runs throughout. The book's value lies in its parallel structure: one line is a warm family memory, the other a portrait of the spiritual growth of women in New China, with personal fate mirrored against each wave of the times, plain yet weighty. It does not rely on dramatic conflict but on detail and lived experience to show how a generation of women sought growth within constraints. It is also well suited for children and parents to read together, using the experiences in the book to open intergenerational conversation within the family.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers who want to understand the growth of women in New China through family narratives
Readers interested in mother-themed writing, family memory, and records of intergenerational emotion
Adult children who hope to read alongside their parents and use the book's experiences to start family conversations
Readers of documentary literature concerned with how ordinary people complete identity transformations amid changing times

Not a good fit for

Readers of fiction who prefer strong plots, fast pacing, and dramatized conflict
Readers expecting systematic historical research or sociological theory and needing an academic framework
Readers impatient with the plain narration of family memoirs who seek sensational stories

Reading tips

Read in the order of the mother's life stages, noting the historical background and family choices behind each identity transformation.
When reading details about the mother's education of her children, compare them with similar experiences in your own family and make brief annotations.
Best read together with parents or elders; choose a chapter as an entry point for family conversation.
After finishing, try to map out a timeline of the mother's life to help grasp how personal history corresponds to the history of the times.

版权信息
内容提要
序章
第一部分成长岁月
童年
少年
青年
出嫁
第二部分教育者
民办教师
生活即教育
第三部分生命力满满
下海经商
晚年生活

FAQ

Is this book a fictional novel or a true memoir?

The work reviews the mother's life from a child's perspective and clearly carries the color of family memory and firsthand narration, while shaping a woman who grows amid the currents of the times. It can be read as a narrative combining family history with a portrait of an era.

What identity transformations did the mother undergo?

According to the materials, the mother was born in wartime, lost her father in childhood and experienced poverty and interrupted schooling; she later grew from a village girl into an industrial worker, grassroots cadre, and rural teacher, and went into business during the tide of reform and opening up, while always working hard and raising and educating her children.

Why is it suitable to read with parents?

The book recounts the mother's experiences from a child's perspective and touches on shared family memories such as war, poverty, schooling, work, and historical change. Reading it with parents easily draws out their own experiences and creates a natural intergenerational dialogue without starting from abstract topics.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

鲤鱼 Author

Liyu is an author about whom little public information is available. The library currently holds only one work by this author, a collection of prose and miscellaneous writings titled My Mother. Judging from the title and its common classification, the author approaches mother-related material in a prose style, placing the writing close to personal lived experience. Because the dates of birth and death, nationality, and English name cannot be confirmed, it is difficult to reconstruct a biographical outline or to determine whether the author has written in other areas. Based on the available information, Liyu's writing seems to center on family and affection, and the language is likely to lean toward plain, concrete narration rather than grand argument. Writing of this kind often moves readers through detail and sincerity, and this work can be seen as an attempt to look back on the author's mother and record everyday feelings in words. With only one work to go on, the author's stylistic direction and literary influence await further evidence, and readers may best approach the piece as a quiet family essay.