Growing up in China in the 13th century, 12-year-old Haoyou had had instilled in him the virtues of respect and obedience. By the time he has come through the sequence of hazardous and exhilarating experiences which provide the content of McCaughrean's engrossing story he has, however, been given good reasons to question his deference. After watching the horrifying death of his "windtester" father and, subsequently, his widowed mother's efforts to escape the advances of the villainous Di Chou, Haoyou becomes a talented kite-maker, though this involvement with flying and the skies is merely the prelude to his real vocation, a wonderfully fulfilling and mind-opening apprenticeship as "kite rider" with a travelling circus. Full of daring and danger, and suffused with local sound and colour, this is a children's novel on an epic scale.