The book is set in post-Cultural Revolution China. The children with high school education or more of the people classed as "enemies of the state" are sent into the rural areas to be re-educated by the peasants. This book follows the story of two young boys, one of which is 'writing' in the first person and his name is never mentioned. The life of re-education is harsh, often brutal and almost utterly without reward. Until, that is, the two boys meet the Little Seamstress and a talent for storytelling on the part of the one gets them out of some of the work. The story is intense and strangely gripping. I say strangely because at first glance this is a simple story about two boys who fall in love with a girl, watch some movies and read some [forbidden] books. It is, however, engaging and so well-written that you can almost smell the sweat and the excrement as they toil up to the fields. You can feel their joy and their pain - and more importantly their confusion in a world they've barely lived in that has branded them dangerous outcasts.