Hai Xiao, 14and a 2nd grader at a middle school in the Inner Mongolia region of China, published his first novel after the winter vacation. The novel, titled "It's so hard to study at school", has quickly become a hit,the sohu.com reported Wednesday. Hai Xiao said he conceived his book "accidentally".
"The inspiration came from my winter projects assigned by my teacher," Hai said. "In the winter vacation of my first year in the middle school, my Chinese teacher assigned us 10 compositions to be done over three weeks,"Hai Xiao said.
"Each composition must have at least 800 Chinese words,"he added.
Not the most diligent of student, Hai left all the 10 compositions to the end of the winter vacation.
His father, witnessing his son's stress, argued with the Chinese teacher to let his son write an 8,000-word novel instead. Although it was only an attempt to begin with and no one knew if the idea would run with readers, Hai Xiao's novel worked astonishingly well. The boy not only reached the 8,000-word target, but was unable to put the pen down.
He worked until the 140,000-word novel "It's so hard to study at school"was finished.
"In my book,I poured out what I wanted to say most, and also what my friends wanted to say most," Hai Xiao said.
"So my pen couldn't help moving and my mind never felt exhausted, "he said.
Hai, also good at drawing, made the book's illustrated cover.
The cover of the book, interesting and ironic, depicted a boy at a fork in the road. The boy looks puzzled as to which of the three roads to take - one leads to the highrise buildings, one to a pile of books and the other to the planet earth where little boy lies smiling and playing freely.
(eastday.com March 20, 2002)
