Language: 0

Violence: 3

Sexual Content: 3

Adult Themes: 3

Title: Cleopatra: A Life

Author: Stacy Schiff - Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

*This review refers to an advanced copy.  Cleopatra will be available for purchase in November 2010.

Ratings Explanation

Violence: Cleopatra’s family indulged in what has been termed, “an orgy of pillage and murder.”  Over and over, mothers sent troops against sons.  Sisters waged war against brothers.  Cleopatra’s great-grandmother fought one civil war against her parents, a second against her children.  Cleopatra’s father, murdered her elder sister.  Cleopatra ably upheld the family tradition, eliminating a sister and two brothers.

Sexual Content:  Nothing could better have suited the twenty-two-year-old Cleopatra’s political agenda than motherhood.  And no single act could better have secured her future than bearing Julius Caesar’s child – while each of the new parents was married to someone else.  Incest.

Adult Themes: War, murder, adultery and betrayal.

Publisher’s Synopsis

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer brings to life the most intriguing woman in the history of the world: Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt.

Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator.

Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. Ultimately she dispensed with an ambitious sister as well; incest and assassination were family specialties. Cleopatra appears to have had sex with only two men. They happen, however, to have been Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, among the most prominent Romans of the day. Both were married to other women. Cleopatra had a child with Caesar and–after his murder–three more with his protégé. Already she was the wealthiest ruler in the Mediterranean; the relationship with Antony confirmed her status as the most influential woman of the age. The two would together attempt to forge a new empire, in an alliance that spelled their ends. Cleopatra has lodged herself in our imaginations ever since.

Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way, Cleopatra’s supple personality and the drama of her circumstances have been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff ’s is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life.

Among the most famous women to have lived.  Cleopatra VII ruled Egypt for twenty-two years.  At the height of her power, she controlled virtually the entire eastern Mediterranean coast, the last great kingdom of any Egyptian ruler.

Stacy Schiff is a brilliant writer!  If you love biographies, “Cleopatra” will hold you captive.

©2010The Literate Mother

Language:2

Violence:3

Sexual Content:1

Adult Themes:3

Title: Red Scarf Girl

Author: Ji-Li Jiang

Ratings Explanation

Language: A few common swear words.  Taunting and degrading talk towards those who were accused of being non-revolutionists (teachers, parents, wealthy, elderly etc).  Signs were hung around the city claiming unlawful actions and wrong doing on the part of many innocent people.

Violence:  The Revolution caused many to look down on the wealthy regardless of age or health.  Many teachers, parents and elderly were pushed around and beaten to get a confession of wrong doings.  Those who were suspected of having different political views and opinions were tortured and beaten until they confessed, whether they were guilty or not. Some committed suicide rather than face a life of disgrace.

Sexual Content:  Teacher accused of having relations with a student.  Mention of a women who had several sexual relations outside of marriage.  Ji-Li has an admirer but wants nothing to do with him.  When Ji-Li’s home is searched they find her sanitary belt.  She is humiliated that nothing is kept private.

Adult Themes:  The Revolutionaries taught that political status comes before family.  Many young people were caught up in the allure of their Revolutionary leaders and disowned their families.  The Revolution was meant to bring new ideas and change to improve China.  All old traditions and anything alluding to them were to be destroyed.  The homes of many families were searched for photos, books, clothing, antiques etc. that reflected old China.  These things were confiscated and destroyed leaving many families in poverty.  Teachers were looked down on as corrupting the minds of the youth with old ways.  They were publicly disgraced and replaced with new Revolutionary-minded teachers.  Reverse discrimination from the poor to the wealthy was common.  The wealthy were publicly humiliated and made to work regardless of age or health to help them repent of their years of wrong doing.  Those who were suspected of different political views were subjected to verbal torture from family members and physical punishment from captors.

Synopsis:  When Mao Zedong launches China’s  Cultural Revolution, young Ji-Li’s world turns upside down.  She was top of her school class and highly recognized for her hard scholastic work.  Ji-Li comes from a well-to-do Chinese family with a history of wealthy landlord ancestors. The Revolution taught that all old culture must be abandoned and the wealthy blamed for China’s suffering.  Ji-Li’s father, the son of a wealthy landlord, is detained leaving the rest of her family living in constant fear.  Over the next few years, Ji-Li must decide whether to disown her ‘black’ family and join the Revolution or give up all she has worked so hard for to help her family.

I was deeply touched by Ji-Li’s story.  I have a better understanding of how an entire nation can be swallowed up in an idea that leads to their destruction.  The Revolution through a child’s viewpoint was powerful and eye opening.  I closed the book with an appreciation for our incredible freedom and an admiration for all of the heroes around the world that choose to follow their heart.  The author, Ji-Li, currently oversees projects that promote eastern and western relations.  She also shares her story in person with many students around the nation.  

©2010 The Literate Mother