Our Missing Hearts Av Celeste Ng

<p><b>''It''s impossible not to be moved'' <i>Stephen King</i></b><br><b><br>''Stunning...this novel will break your heart and fire up your courage'' <i>Mail on Sunday</i></b><br><br><b>The <i>New York Times</i> bestseller, a deeply heart-wrenching novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child and a</b><b><i> TIMES </i>BEST PAPERBACK OF APRIL 2023<br><br></b>Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left without a trace when he was nine years old. He doesn''t know what happened to her-only that her books have been banned-and he resents that she cared more about her work than about him. <br><br> Then one day, Bird receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, and soon he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks

'Thought-provoking, heart-wrenching' Reese Witherspoon'It's impossible not to be moved by Margaret Miu's courage' Stephen King'Exceptionally powerful and scaldingly relevant' Observer'Stunning...this novel will break your heart and fire up your courage' Mail on SundayThe New York Times bestseller, a deeply heart-wrenching novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear. Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in Harvard's library. He knows not to ask too many questions, stand out too much, stray too far.For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve 'American culture' in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic - including the work of Bird's mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old. Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn't know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn't wonder.But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is drawn into a quest to find her. His journey will take him through the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change. Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can turn a blind eye to the most searing injustice.It's a story about the power - and limitations - of art to create change in the world, the lessons and legacies we pass onto our children, and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact.