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The History Book Festival, Lewes, DE

 

My friend Dorothy and I attended this festival held in the quaint and historical town of Lewes, DE, in September. Lewes is also where you get the ferry to travel to Cape May, NJ. A hurricane was coming through, and nearby Ocean City, MD, had canceled a heavily booked concert that weekend because of flooding.

But despite heavy rains, the History Book Festival was held as planned. Two schools and the public library were the venues for three tracks of programs featuring the authors of current fiction and nonfiction historicals. As we listened to Bo Wang talk about the research she conducted to write The Chinese Lady, I heard Dorothy say to herself, “I’m coming back next year.” I was thinking the same thing.

I’ve got it on my calendar: History Book Festival, Lewes, DE, Sept. 24-26, 2027.

 

Book Review: The Chinese Lady

by Bo Wang

*****Highly recommended 

 

This debut historical novel immortalizes the life of the first Chinese woman brought to the United States in 1834. Her true name is not known. In the book, she is the unloved and unwanted daughter of a Cantonese merchant and is called Little Sparrow. As a young child, her feet were broken and bound. Her next name, Julia, is given to her by the wife of the ship’s captain who takes her to New York. There she is displayed as a live exhibit to promote the sale of Chinese imports.

Then she is shunted off to become another exhibit in P.T. Barnum’s American Museum that includes a midget, a bearded lady, a woman claiming to be 161 years old and former nursemaid to George Washington, and others. They call her China.

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She runs away to San Francisco where she claims a name of her own and becomes wealthy in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

The story is sweeping and textured with themes of identity, survival, and the pursuit of agency. Nothing is known about who the Chinese lady really was or what became of her but Bo Wang creates a satisfying ending.

 

Mystery and Mayhem

Book Review: The Feather Detective

by Chris Sweeney

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Another offering at the History Book Festival, this biography of the first forensic ornithologist, Roxie Laybourne, presents an engrossing portrait of a woman skilled at handling the politics of the lab and the courtroom and the sexism she encountered. NPR calls it “A timely story about the benefits of government-funded science, the invisibility of public safety’s most important workers, and a fascinating—and peculiar—ecosystem: One woman and lots and lots of birds.”