The Kite Rider: A Boy's Dangerous Circus Adventure in Thirteenth-Century China Under Kublai Khan

What a lovely story and so well-written! I was engaged from the first page forward. I couldn't put it down and my children loved it as well. Excellent, excellent read.

Awesome book, my sixth grader had to read the book as a school project but he really enjoyed the book very much. I think he read it in like two days.

This is one of the worst children's books I've ever read. The characters are like caricatures--honestly, this was a comic book or graphic novel without the graphics. The writing is awkward and clumsy, and the plot is flimsy and unsatisfying.

This story will interest young people and adults in learning about the era of Kubla Kahn. It is a page turner for sure. This society, where the women and young people must follow their elders no matter how dishonest and awful those elders are, is so different from ours. What an amazing and curios society is was. I think this book should be required.

I always have a hard time convincing students to read this wonderful adventure epic. I think it is the length, and its historical setting (China during the Mongol Dynasty) doesn't sound exciting. Kite Rider, though, is a thrill ride of great literature. Students who take on the challenge are enthralled with the young Hoyou, who while just trying to support his family, finds himself at the center of a natural disaster, a kidnapping, a hurricane, a clan war, a family feud, and an organized crime syndicate seeking revenge. Whew! This is an excellent novel for teaching students to read slowly and really think about the writing and the words. It is also a good choice to use with the CCC standards for ancient civilizations and for historical fiction. A masterpiece.

This book takes us back into the 13th century in China with the point of view from a boy named Hoayuo. After waching his beloved father, Pie, die. Hoayou's life is filled with misery, but more trouble comes when a Di Chou, the person who killed Hoayuo's father by making him test the wind for a long journey, shows up and gets proposed to Hoayou's lonely and widowed mother. Afterwards Hoayuo gets engaged with kites and starts making some for money for his family. Hoayuo is then noticed by the noble Maio Jeand his circus. Maio invites Hoayuo to be his circuses kite rider. Then the evil, Kublai Khan strikes and gets trouble in Hoayuo's journey.This book is absalutely great for time passing and entertaining. You really get the images and pictures in your mind once you start reading this book. So take a look at this book, and start reading it, because you will want to read the story.

So, who's worse--the guy who kills your father and then burns up your house and livelihood in order to get his paws on your beautiful mother, or the great uncle who is doing his best to sell off that beautiful mother to the killer? And what has Kublai Kahn got to do with this historic adventure story that poses the question to teenagers--What if you are taught to always obey your relatives and those relatives make the Dursleys look like Ozzy and Harriet?Haoyou is the boy living this nightmare, adrift in a sea of tradition, obedience, and superstition, who takes the daring gamble of offering himself as a wind tester:"...Again the crew tugged on the rope, to tilt it back into the face of the wind. Haoyou's head cracked against the matting, and the rope handles burned the skin off his palms. He could hear the fibers of the rope creaking under the strain, his ribs bending inward where the harness crossed his chest. Perhaps his kite would burst apart. Perhaps there would be no air at all to breathe at the top of the sky"The key to this riveting story set in thirteenth century Cathay (China) is a strong, cunning, heroic female character--a distant relative named Mipeng. I was continually touched and astounded by her bravery and intelligence as well as her friendship and support of Haoyou. She is fiercely determined to strip that blindfold of obedience from his eyes."And all at once, as if fear were a cloud layer through which he had risen, Haoyou looked about him and saw the whole world beneath him. And it was his. Like a sliver shield daubed with blue and green, it throbbed, convex, complex, beautiful. He was a swimmer floating on the surface of an ocean, borne up by such a clarity of water that he could see each sunken treasure, each darting fish, each twist of coral down there in the unbreathing fathoms below. He, out of all its sluggish inhabitants, could breathe! He alone had mastery over this shining province so beautiful that it spangled red and black and green in front of his eyes."It is also fascinating to get such a vivid taste, vision, and smell of the Cathay encountered by Marco Polo--from the grimy, oily seaside villages to the opulence of the aforementioned Mongol conqueror.And it's a rare adventure story that could top that feeling McCaughrean gives us in THE KITE RIDER--of flying hundreds of feet in the air, over a land of long ago, anchored to Mother Earth by a kitestring.

I was trying to find a book that would interest both boys and girls. The Kite Rider fit the bill. The story is emotional and exciting. The decriptions in the book can help students make a picture of the story. It has just enough history and culture that teachers can suppliment their lessons with the book. My students like the book better than reading the text book.

My granddaughter heard an extract from this in school and asked for it for her birthday. She is so far enjoying reading it.

Awesome read takes you on an amazing journey full of wonderful heartfelt characters.

A good read for a 14 year old

This book is fantastic from the start and very well written. A real page turner with plenty of suspense, highly recommended!!

great book