Homesick: My Own Story

Read the most by: boys and girls

Jean Fritz was born in China and lived there until 1927, when she was twelve. Young Jean had spent her entire life in China, but her parents' memories of home and letters from relatives in Pennsylvania made her feel that she was American--and homesick for a place she'd never seen! Family photographs and illustrations by Margot Tomes show us the real people behind Jean's vivid and unforgettable stories -memories of picnics on the Great Wall, pranks, holidays in the foreign compound, rebellious moments at her British school, close ties to Chinese friends, and how it felt to be called a "foreign devil" and spat upon in the streets of a turbulent China on the eve of revolution. When her family embarks upon its long journey home, Jean is thrilled, but she wonders: When she arrives in America at last, will she fit in after growing up on "the wrong side of the world?"