When Mao's Cultural Revolution took hold in China in June 1966, Ange Zhang was thirteen years old. Ange's father was a famous writer whose "Yellow River Cantata" was considered by many to be the anthem of the Chinese Revolution. Shortly after the revolution began,many of Ange's classmates joined the Red Guard, Mao's youth movement, and they drove their teachers out of the classrooms. Ange and his friends now spent their days memorizing Mao's quotations and pasting posters in the streets. But in the weeks that follow Ange discovered that his father's fame as a writer now meant that he was a target of the new regime and that Ange himself was characterized as a "black kid," unable to join the Red Guard. Ange's whole world had fallen apart.When his father was arrested, he began to question everything that was happening in his country. He secretly read every book in his father's library, and through his reading discovered the beginnings of another view of the world.

Finally, Ange was forced to join many other young urban Chinese students in the countryside for re-education. While life in the village was challenging physically, Ange found emotional space to develop his own artistic talent.