A special man in my life had a beard. One day it was gone. This inspired me to write the poem Grandpa's Beard Has Disappeared. This in turn grew into this collection of stories and poems for children. All are biographic or autobiographic.

THE DANCING WAVES is a collection of poems for children which the author has written over the years. All of them are biographical or autobiographical though names have been changed to maintain privacy.

Devon was a five-year-old when he learned that those headaches he was having were the result of a cancerous tumor behind his eye. But thanks to his family and good doctors, he survived. Or did he? The Castle is the story of his reminiscences, especially of the crystal chess set he got as a gift after his surgery. But then one of the pieces fell to the floor and shattered. Which piece? The castle, or rook as some call it. Suddenly, Devon awakens in a strange land where he finds a real castle - and some of the same people he knew in his childhood. What is real and what is not? Is he alive or dead? It's a story that will keep you wondering....

Du Sihai is different from his peers. They pursue fashion trends, but Du Sihai is not interested in playing that game. He has been a mystery in martial arts novels since he was a child, and he is determined to be a hero who fights bravely.

A profound, poignant story of a village healer and her community, from one of the world’s great contemporary novelists “A complex and illuminating portrait of a group of healers in China . . . [that] offers profound insights about what it means to pursue and live a fulfilling life.”—Publishers Weekly “A barefoot doctor herself, [Can Xue] has a unique and powerful way of transporting readers to new worlds where reality and magic are intertwined, and she uses her own experiences to make this novel feel more personal.”—Emily Park, Booklist In rural Yun Village, herbalist Mrs. Yi lives with her husband in a cottage at the foot of Niulan Mountain, where she gathers herbs to treat the ailments of the villagers by day and studies medicine by night. Sickness and herbs are lovers, she tells her patients, rejoicing when they recover, comforting them when they do not. All the while, she hopes to find a worthy successor to take up her mantle. As curious younger villagers observe Mrs. Yi and begin imitating her work—planting gardens and studying the art of healing—they soon discover that the line dividing life from death is porous, and the mountain is more mysterious than they ever knew. Drawing on her experiences as a barefoot doctor in her youth, Can Xue returns with a transporting novel that alights in the in-between spaces: between the living and the dead, healer and sick, nature and us.