Sophie Chen Keller: "Little Wonder" | Oprah's Book Club

**Sophie Chen Keller** (0:00)
For the first two years of my son's life, I was just completely consumed by mothering in the very best ways, and also in challenging ways. I was sleeping one or two hours at a time, and so I learned just how much exhaustion I could carry around. My son was an intense, sensitive baby, so he did a lot of screaming.

**Oprah Winfrey** (0:20)
Oh, that's how you describe it, okay?
Okay. It was intense and sensitive, yes.

**Sophie Chen Keller** (0:26)
So I just had the sense that my life no longer belonged to me. I missed my old life and my old self.

**Oprah Winfrey** (0:33)
You're describing all young mothers, yes.

**Sophie Chen Keller** (0:35)
So I opened up my laptop, opened up a Word doc, and I started writing this book.

**Oprah Winfrey** (0:40)
And you did so well.
Hi, everybody. It's wonderful to be here with you on The Oprah Podcast. This year, we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of Oprah's Book Club. Let's just-
I'm in awe of that. All thanks to all of you who have been reading with me for now 30 years. And I think that reading is one of the great joys of life. And we have many more fantastic books coming up this year. So much more to come. But it is my pleasure to share my 124th Book Club Selection. Little Wonder, Little Wonder by Sophie Chen Keller. The novel is actually a big wonder full of a lot of astonishing drama. It's the story of a mother and her young son who is a piano prodigy. And they become separated by forces beyond their control in Beijing, China. It's an extraordinary journey about a mother's love, really. And it's about perseverance and the transformative power of music. Welcome Sophie Chen Keller to The Oprah Podcast.

**Sophie Chen Keller** (2:05)
Thank you so much for having me.

**Oprah Winfrey** (2:06)
I'm so glad to have you here.
So I have to say everyone in our audience has read the book. I'd love to hear from a few of you. So Shelby, what did you think?

**Shelby** (2:19)
Hi Oprah, thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. Sophie, I loved your book. I could speak forever about how much I loved overall what you had written, but I actually wanted to touch on a smaller detail that really resonated with me personally.
I'm a tap dancer professionally, which means I'm a musician and more specifically a percussionist. And so I've often noticed the rhythms in the world around me in a way that maybe others wouldn't. And so I particularly loved and was so intrigued by your choice to have River noticing the inanimate objects around him as music notes, like a horn honking at a G flat. And that was such a nice reminder throughout the book as to what a musical prodigy River was. And it was in those small details that you wrote that I found the book to be particularly special.

**Oprah Winfrey** (3:10)
Yeah, you know, I never even thought of that because I'm not musically inclined at all. So I don't know a G flat from a C.
So it's interesting that that's the way you look at the world too. Is that the way you hear things?

**Shelby** (3:22)
Yeah, well, as a tap dancer, I noticed the rhythms more so than the notes.
So I might notice that we're in triplets, like a train track is moving in triplets versus hearing the notes like River does. Yeah, one end, two end.

**Oprah Winfrey** (3:37)
Oh, that's pretty cool.

**Shelby** (3:39)
Andrew.

**Andrew** (3:41)
Hi, Oprah. Hi, Sophie. I loved your book. The character that I resonated with the most was obviously River. I'm a child of immigrants and like River's mother growing up, I feel like my mom who was also a single mother, she gave up so much and sacrifice so much so that I could grow up with better circumstances than what she grew up in.
In the book, River talks about how it only takes two people to make a world. I found it really meaningful that despite the circumstances of the story and despite how much time they spend apart, the world that Song and River share is made up of love and playfulness and music. So I really love that.

**Oprah Winfrey** (4:19)
Yeah, I love the names too, don't you? Song and River.
All right, so let's get to it. You were born in China and raised in California and Ohio.

**Sophie Chen Keller** (4:30)
Yes.

**Oprah Winfrey** (4:30)
And you grew up with your mother reading to you. And that's what gave you a love for writing. Yes.