A Year Without "Made in China"

This book will do nothing to help you learn about sweatshops, Chinese labor, the reason for unions or anything like that. The author doesn't ever really explain why she decides to boycott China; she mostly complains about being unable to buy cheap goods for her family during the boycott. And considering she continues to buy items from Hong Kong and Macau during her boycott, I'm really not sure what made some publisher think the author knew at all what she was talking about.

In the epilogue, the author mentions that a Chinese boycott is possible, but she just doesn't want to live in a world without plastic water guns. Imagine the horror!

I'm giving this book two stars, though, because it has taught me something about how not to parent. If my four-year-old ever throws a fit in the middle of Target because I won't let her buy a plastic jack-o-lantern, I surely will not later give in and return to the store to buy the piece of junk. That the author was surprised when, after doing just that, her son lost interest in the jack-o-lantern a week later blows my mind.