Tierrasanta Book Club

This month's book is The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, by Lisa See. Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. One day a jeep appears at the village gate -- the first automobile any of them have seen -- and a stranger arrives. In this remote Yunnan village, the stranger finds the rare tea he has been seeking and the reticent Akha people. Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, translates for the stranger and is among the first to reject the rules that have shaped her existence. When she has a baby outside of wedlock, she wraps her daughter in a blanket, with a tea cake hidden in her swaddling, and abandons her in the nearest city. After mother and daughter have gone their separate ways, Li-yan begins to encounter modern life, while Haley grows up a well-loved California girl. But each wonders about the other. Books are available for check-out at the Tierrasanta Branch Library.  2nd Thursdays. For further information, contact Karen Boyd @ 858-888-2115.