Little Wonder

bySophie Chen Keller

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Song is a nobody—just a food delivery worker from a village in Northeastern China—but her son, River, is a little wonder.

At the age of three, he toddled to a piano and tapped out his favourite song. At five, he mastered Liszt's three Liebesträume; at eight, he blazed through the complete set of Chopin's études. And at every step, through loss, illness and poverty, Song has been there to light his way—until finally, at the age of eleven, River is invited to study with a preeminent teacher in Beijing.

But in the chaos of Beijing Railway Station on the busiest day of the year, Song faces every mother's nightmare: she loses her grip on River’s little hand and is unable to find him after a desperate, harrowing search.

Over the next days, weeks, and eventually, years, Song and River fight to forge a path back to each other as they carve out new lives that carry them farther apart. An evocative exploration of a mother’s love and a son’s yearning, Little Wonder takes us on an extraordinary journey through a modern Beijing that pulses with the music of humanity and its impossible—and impossibly brave—hopes.

As every musician knows: You start in one key. You wander to other keys, strange and distant places. But in the end, you always come back home.

With characters so finely crafted that you feel their joys and their sorrows, LITTLE WONDER examines what is like to lose someone and what it’s like to be lost. As readers, we feel the fear of navigating an unfamiliar world, the anxiety of performance, the kindness of strangers, the love of a mother and a son and the remarkable ability of music to heal our wounds. Sophie Chen Keller writes with a musicality that reflects the tale it tells. A wonderful story and an extraordinary read

Amanda Peters, author of the nationally bestselling The Berry Pickers

About Sophie Chen Keller

Sophie Chen Keller was first published at the age of fifteen, with a short story in Glimmer Train literary magazine. A classically trained pianist, she was born in China and raised in California; after graduating from Harvard, she lived in New York City and Beijing before moving to Germany, where she currently resides with her husband and two children. She is the author of one previous novel, The Luster of Lost Things.
Details
  • Imprint: Fig Tree
  • ISBN: 9780241845516
  • Length: 352 pages
  • Price: £15.99
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