The Clay Marble

• Genre: Fiction; middle grade historical fiction
• Originally Published: 1991
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 860L; grades 5-6
• Structure/Length: Preface, 18 chapters, afterword; approx. 176 pages; approx. 4 hours, 31 minutes on audio
• Protagonist/Central Conflict: Twelve-year-old Dara, her older brother Sarun, and their mother live in war-torn Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. They travel to the Thai border in search of food. They befriend another Cambodian family, and Dara and Jantu become fast friends. When warring guerrilla groups start fighting in their area, Dara and Jantu are separated from their families. Jantu gives Dara a clay marble that has been imbued with her magic. Will it be enough to help them reunite with their families, or will Dara have to find the magic within herself to survive?
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Guerrilla warfare violence; death of a child; refugees; hunger

Minfong Ho, Author

• Bio: Born in 1951 in Burma (now Myanmar); Chinese American writer; often writes about the lives of people in Southeast Asian countries; earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from Cornell University; began writing at Cornell to combat homesickness; worked as a journalist in Singapore; taught English at Chiang Mai University in Thailand, which deeply impacted her life and writing; returned to Cornell University and completed an MFA in creative writing; returned to Singapore in 1983 and worked as a writer-in-residence at National University of Singapore; currently living with her family in Ithaca, New York
• Other Works: Sing the Dawn (1975); Rice without Rain (1986); Hush! A Thai Lullaby (1996); Gathering the Dew (2003)