Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze
by Elizabeth Foreman Lewis
Middle grade · ages 10–14 · grades 5–9 · 780L · 1996
Why we'd hand it over
A 1923 Newbery that holds up: Fu's struggle to master copperwork in 1920s Chungking reads as genuine character formation, not didactic, with a quiet attention to Chinese culture that avoids exoticization.