This is a novel about poverty and dignity, land and hope, suffering and growth. It describes the thirty years of an ordinary farm family in the loess mountains of Gansu Province. It is also a microcosm of the journey of thousands of Chinese rural children out of the mountains.
The book is divided into six volumes and spans from 1993 to 2013. It takes Zhao Mantian's growth as the main line and connects his grandfather's vision of planting apple trees, his mother's careful housekeeping, the eldest sister's self-sacrifice and sensibleness, his father's silent responsibility, as well as those shoulders carrying water, worn soles, pot helmets as hard as stones, and nights doing homework under kerosene lamps. Establishing Zhao Mantian's childhood world—poor but dignified, hardship but hopeful
