Combining the huge appeal of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Bringing up Bébé, and The Smartest Kids in the World, journalist Lenora Chu's Little Soldiers explores China's insular education system, which is held up as an international example for the academic and behavioral excellence of its students, from her perspective as an American mother living in Shanghai; initially impressed, Chu sends her son to a Chinese school, but as she investigates the methods used she begins to wonder if China's schools are really what the West should be measuring itself against, much less emulating.