Little Wonder

Song is a nobody—just a food delivery worker from a village in Northeast China—but her son, River, is a little wonder. At the age of four, he toddles to a piano and taps out his favorite song. At eight, he masters Liszt’s three Liebestraume; at ten, he blazes through the complete set of Chopin’s études. And at every step, through the valleys of loss, illness, and poverty, Song is there to light his way—until finally, at the age of eleven, River is invited to study with a preeminent teacher in Beijing. But in the chaos of Beijing Railway Station on the busiest day of the year, Song faces every mother’s nightmare: She loses her grip on River’s little hand and is unable to find him after a desperate, harrowing search. Over the next days, weeks, and eventually, years, Song and River fight to forge a path back to each other as they carve out new lives that carry them farther apart. An evocative exploration of a mother’s love and a son’s yearning, Little Wonder takes us on an extraordinary journey through a modern Beijing that pulses with the music of humanity and its impossible—and impossibly brave—hopes. As every musician knows: You start in one key. You wander to other keys, strange and distant places. But in the end, you always come back home.

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