75 pages 2 hours read

Forbidden City

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1990

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Summary and Study Guide

Overview

William Bell’s 1990 young adult fiction novel, Forbidden City: A Novel of Modern China, dramatizes the story of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. The coming-of-age story is told in diary form, narrated from the point of view of a 17-year-old Canadian high school student, Alex Jackson. During the massacre, Alex comes very close to losing everything he holds dear, as he becomes separated from his reporter father, Ted Jackson, and has to trust to the kindness of student protesters hiding from their government.

In the beginning of the book, Alex is a regular teenager, irritated with his daredevil journalist father whose antics he often finds foolish. He has suffered through his parents’ bitter divorce and found a respite in his hobby of military history and miniature soldier molding, painting, and positioning. He enjoys tactics, maps, and stories of conquests and victory. Heroism, from Alex’s view at the novel’s start, is innate in those that fight and participate in battle. He finds those who object to war to be foolish or weak.

All of this changes when he travels to Beijing, China, with his father. Alex is initially interested in visiting the sights of great military battles. Soon enough, he comes to see that there is more of interest.

blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
Unlock Icon

Unlock all 75 pages of this Study Guide

Plus, gain access to 8,850+ more expert-written Study Guides.

Including features:

+ Mobile App
+ Printable PDF
+ Literary AI Tools