An Orchid in Bloom and Other Novels by You Jin

Hi Frederic, 

You wrote "as teachers we don't throw away "apples" with worms (the metaphor referenced in the story) but, rather, work to cut the worm out." I can't agree with you more. I feel the You Jin’s novels were selected just for us teachers as they really come in handy before 2019 school year starts. When a student's behavior is a bit "unique", we really need to go to the bottom of what happed. In the past in a workshop I attended, a presenter told a group of teachers about dealing with inevitable "bad apples" in baskets with "Just throw them away since you can't do anything about them." Comparing the strategies You Jin   wrote in her other novels selected for this workshop like "The Boy with Golden Hair" and "Pets", we know that we really should not throw away "bad apples"; instead, we should work to cut out the bad parts only. 

Xiaowei