I have been intrigued by the Red Threads in Chinese folklore that link people invisibly and irrevocably, ever since first reading about them in Grace Lin’s beautiful picture book The Red Thread: An Adoption Fairy Tale. They then reappear in her wonderful Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and Jama at Alphabet Soup quotes Grace as saying: “To me, those red threads, those connections are the stories we share.”…

So I couldn’t resist picking up Ed Young’s Red Thread (Philomel Books, 1993) when I came across it recently: and it’s a wonderful story, which grows in meaning the more you read it. Wei Gu is a young man who, having been orphaned as a boy, is keen to find a wife and be part of a family. Hearing that a matchmaker is going to be in the town of Quinge, he travels there and makes sure he is at the temple good and early – in fact, he is so early that it is still dark (and here, Young’s illustrations are particularly stunning). He meets an old man, a spirit who can tell him that the red thread connecting him to his future wife leads to a three-year-old girl, and that they will marry in fourteen years time. Not only that, but they can go together to see her right there and then. However, Wei Gu is disgusted that she is apparently the daughter of vegetable sellers; and he also finds her ugly. Horrifically, he orders his servant to murder the child – but the red thread cannot be broken so easily and when Wei Gu marries fourteen years later, he discovers that the flower seed his beautiful wife always wears between her eyebrows carries a not unfamiliar story with it…

The narrative is simple but still manages to convey psychological depth; and the complexities inherent in the story mean that the book will grow with young readers. The act of violence is shocking – but as is so often the case in fairy-tales (and I am particularly struck by parallels with the western Snow White here), young readers/listeners will probably be less affected by it than the grown-ups reading it to them. The message that you can’t outrun your destiny is clear – but all the same, Wei Gu is lucky after his wicked act to end up with a loving wife who still loves him, even when the truth comes out.

A red thread runs throughout the book, straight across the pages, separating the text from the main focus of the illustrations, which completely fill each double-page spread. There are grandiose architectural spaces, busy market scenes and energetic close-ups, all depicted in a beautiful pallette of blues and greens, with orange as a striking outline color. In fact, as far as Young’s illustrations go, this for me is right up there as one of my favorites.

Now, there’s a question: which books by Ed Young are your and your children’s favorites? I am being very kind putting it in the plural, because I would find it very hard to narrow it down to just one myself!

The Bracelet by Yoshiko Uchida, illustrated by Joanna Yardley (Philomel Books, 1993) recounts the story of a Japanese American girl named Emi.  It is 1942 and Emi is about to leave her home in San Francisco for an internment camp further inland.  It is an uncertain and precarious time.  Just before Emi’s departure, her friend Laurie Madison shows up at the door with a gift.  It is a heart bracelet.  Emi receives the gift gladly, swearing that she will “never, ever take it off.”  But in the hustle and bustle of the move, Emi loses the bracelet and for the first time, despite all the other difficulties she has faced with her family during their ordeal, she wants to cry.  Will she recover the bracelet?  Or rather, what will she do if she doesn’t?

I read this story to my daughter, expecting a certain sort of ending and getting another one, and this was what surprised me about this book.  Emi has an epiphany about her lost bracelet that is both simple and profound.  Objects are not the repositories of our memories; our minds are.  Despite the loss of the bracelet, Emi knows that she will never forget the friendship she had with Laurie and this is an important truth for Emi to realize about herself and her situation.  Illustrator Joanna Yardley has done a wonderful job of depicting a very realistic-looking Emi as a shy and contemplative girl; I was especially struck by an image of her face in which the details are very fine, right down to Emi’s eyelashes.

Reading this book gave me an opportunity to explain to my daughter that Emi’s experience was similar to those of her grandfather’s and my great aunt’s.  She herself made the connection and I elaborated a little on the differences between the Canadian and American experiences.  I knew about Yoshiko Uchida’s childrens’ books on the topic from before but this book made me want to seek out more by her!

Our summer holidays are nearly over and the Reading the World Challenge is nearly running away with me in terms of posting about the books we’ve read – so without further ado, here’s the latest installment, including the long overdue catch-up with our fellow readers…

Together we have read the delightful Lulie the Iceberg by Her Royal Highness Princess Takamado and illustrated by Warabe Aska (Kodansha America, 1998), which Sally wrote about a while ago – her post prompted us to get hold of it: and we did, indeed, love it. We read the actual story one evening and then spent several evenings after that reading the factual information at the end, while hunting again and again for the various creatures mentioned in the gorgeous illustrations. Read Sally’s post for a synopsis of the story…

Meanwhile, Older Brother has read Linda Sue Park’s A Single Shard (Clarion Books, 2001):

A Single Shard is about a young boy called Tree-ear in 12th Century Korea, who loves watching a potter called Min making vases grow from the wheel. Then Tree-ear starts working for Mon (but he’s not allowed to actually make things) and goes on a long journey to the emperor with some pottery to seek a commission – but he is tricked by robbers on the way…

It’s a very exciting story. It made me feel happy and sad at different times: and the ending was probably the saddest part of all, though it did eventually turn out to be for the best.

Little Brother has also read a book set in Antarctica – but I have to confess that I have mislaid the notebook in which he wrote his mini-review, which he will be quite unimpressed about. I will try and remedy the situation asap.

In the meantime, what of everyone else in all these weeks that have elapsed since my last update?

Corinne has read Shanghai Girls by Lisa See, of which she says, “It won Honorable Mention for Adult Fiction in the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature. I loved Lisa’s previous book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and this book did not disappoint either. Highly recommend it especially for all those “historical novel” lovers like me.”

Olduvai at Olduvai Reads has completed the Challenge – Hooray! You can find links to her reviews for all the books she read here…

Tiina of A Book Blog of One’s own has read The Lovers of Algeria by Anouar Benmalek and The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge…

And I’m so glad Jama at Jama Rattigan’s Alphabet Soup has joined in too. She’s been reading a wonderful selection of picture books about Asia and Asian Americans, focusing on Korea, China and Japan - definitely not to be missed.

And welcome, too, to Nora at Reading My Way Through The Classics, who has read Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

There are only four and a bit months left of the year but if you’re happy to squash your reading up a bit, you could still join in our Reading the World Challenge of seven books from or about each of the seven continents… And I promise it won’t be quite so long till the next write-up!

A young Afghan boy shares his life and dreams for the future with us in The Roses in My Carpets by Rukhsana Khan and illustrated by Ronald Himler (Holiday House, 1998), a beautiful, thought-provoking picture book set in a refugee camp in Pakistan. He doesn’t like school but loves the afternoons he spends weaving carpets from brightly colored threads that all hold special meaning for him: although “Everything in the camp is a dirty brown, so I do not use brown anywhere on my carpets.”

One day his work is interrupted by the shocking news that his sister has been badly hurt. He runs to the hospital. His mother is already there, too distraught to think rationally. Our young narrator takes charge, sending his mother home while he waits for news at the hospital. Fortunately, this being a children’s story, the news is good – which in turn allows for a breathing space that alters the nightmare of conflict he describes at the beginning of the book: that night his dreams open up to allow a tiny space out of danger for him and his beloved family.

Reading a story that includes issues of conflict and hurt needs plenty of thinking and discussion space around it, especially at bedtime – but Rukhsana Khan has written this story so deftly that they too will be comforted by the ending. This wonderful book includes a lot of incidental detail, such as the muezzin calling people to prayer and the boy’s musings about his overseas sponsor. Particularly convincing is the way the boy and his mother can hardly eat at the end of the day, after their terrible fright; and also the reality depicted of a boy who is very mature – who has had to grow up too quickly and take adult responsibilities on his shoulders. The attention to detail also carries over into the fine ilustrations – and young readers, and perhaps adults too, may be particularly struck by the mud buildings in the refugee camp.

I have included The Roses in My Carpets in my Personal View for our current issue of PaperTigers, which focuses on Refugee Children. Rukhsana also talks about the book in her interview with us last year; and do listen to her reading it here. On her blog, she has been discussing Ramadan recently – and I particularly enjoyed this post with an Afghan fable. Yesterday Aline pointed to some books for children that focus on Ramadan – including another of Rukhsana’s…

And please, please spare a thought for all those caught up in the floods in Pakistan, including Afghan refugees like the boy and his family in The Roses in my Carpets. If you’re looking for a charity who are sending relief, take a look at Sally’s post for some links.

Marjorie and I at PaperTigers write the Books at Bedtime posts and these posts usually are about books appropriate for reading to children at bed time.  However, I’m facing a bit of a dilemma having a 13 year old son and a 9 year old daughter.  I no longer read to my son at bed time; he reads for himself and lately, his focus has been on comics and graphic novels.  As a result, I’ve been getting hooked on graphic novels myself (although admittedly the fascination for this genre started for me when I was a teen and had access to Japanese manga even though I couldn’t always read them very well) so I have decided to start reviewing graphic novels in future posts while still also doing the occasional Books at Bedtime post to cover those titles I read with my daughter.

However, as with many things in life, there are cross-overs and overlaps.  While perusing the graphic novel shelf at the library, my daughter found one for herself and brought it over to me.  The Boy, the Bear, The Baron, the Bard by Australian Gregory Rogers (Roaring Book Press, 2004) is a story set in Elizabethan England told entirely in images drawn by Rogers.   You would think a book like this wouldn’t be appropriate for bedtime reading, but quite the contrary!  My daughter, having perused the book, brought it to bed with her and asked if we could narrate the story together, playing the different parts of the characters depicted (which include, needless to say, the title characters including Bard Shakespeare.)  This was a totally appropriate way to read this book, considering that it featured the famous playwright himself and the world of theatre.  And we had fun, moreover, doing it!

Do you ever read graphic novels to your children at bedtime?  Tell me if you do; I’d love to hear of your experiences.  As children become more increasingly focused on the visual medium through the use of computers (we’re fast approaching the age of reading off our Kindles and Ipads to our children at night), reading graphic novels to our kids may well be the middle road of compromise!

A few weeks ago, I attended a reading by First Nations authors at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission session held in Winnipeg (which I also posted about recently) and was introduced to the stories of the engaging and entertaining First Nations writer, Richard Van Camp.  I immediately sought out his books at the library and came home with What’s the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses, illustrated by George Littlechild (Children’s Book Press, 1998) and A Man Called Raven (Children’s Book Press, 1997).

As soon as I got these books, I read them to my daughter and she was completely taken in by them.  She was struck especially by the lesson conveyed in A Man Called Raven wherein a mysterious man teaches some boys not to be cruel to ravens. She also thought the books were very colorful and indeed, George Littlechild’s illustrations are very vibrant.  A week after we read the books together (and we’d been to the zoo and seen a crane which I pointed out to my daughter was the bird in the famous Japanese folktale, the Crane Wife), my daughter kept asking me for the ‘crane’ book.  What crane book?  I wondered.  The one we read before, she said.  I was puzzled until I finally clued in that she was referring to A Man Called Raven, except that she’d mixed up the birds!  That was a funny moment in mixing up symbols!  However culturally disparate, both stories do feature shape shifting birds.  I’ll not tell you anymore though; you can seek out the stories yourselves!

For more about Richard Van Camp, you can check the PaperTigers website here in Personal Views and here for an interview with Richard.

Continuing along the lines of our current How Children Play Around the World theme, I have been re-reading two beautiful picture books I was introduced to in Bologna, thanks to Corinne’s meeting with Corinne (Australian author Corinne Fenton) at the SCWBI stand. Both of them, by Corinne, make perfect bedtime stories, though Queenie: One Elephant’s Story (Black Dog Books (Australia), 2006) may need a bit of discussion time afterwards as part of it is very sad.

Queenie tells the true story of Queenie the elephant who, towards the end of the nineteenth century, was trapped as a young calf by hunters in India and shipped to Australia, where she took up residence at Melbourne Zoo. She became one of the main attractions, giving rides tirelessly. Children would leave apples and peanuts for her aroud her circuit and wrote letters to her, telling her how much they loved her. Then, sadly, in 1945, an accident, compounded by food shortages during the Second World War, meant that she was destroyed. The book ends on a positive note, pausing to feel Queenie’s spirit among the elephants now enjoying the Trail of the Elephants at Melbourne Zoo, but a deep sadness nevertheless remains. Corinne’s narrative is unflinching and as gentle as Queenie herself – and Peter Gouldthorpe’s beautiful illustrations evoke the bygone era they depict, echoing early tinted photography.

On Corinne’s website, you can read a bit more about Queenie and see a photograph – and there are also teachers’ notes.

Flame Stands Waiting, illustrated by Sebastian Ciaffaglione (Black Dog Books, 2010) is also set in Melbourne – but this time the focus is on the carousel ride that can still be found at Melbourne Luna Park. While the illustrations have a 1930s feel about them, they are brought right up to date by a bold use of perspective that exactly suits the excitement of a carousel ride: and Corinne’s present tense narrtative does exactly the same.

Flame is one of the horses on the carousel, but he is sad because unlike the other horses, he can’t move up and down – until, that is, he discovers how to fly in his imagination, thanks to one little girl’s whisper in his ear: “We are going to fly into the clouds, over the stars and even beyond the moon! We can go anywhere we please.” I can see this lovely story becoming a firm favorite, asked for again and again before happy listeners head off into their own dreams – maybe even riding a pearly carousel horse…

We’re delighted to welcome Out of the Way! Out of the Way! on this the third day of the book’s blog tour, when it will also be visiting Tarie at Asia in the Heart, World on the Mind.

Written by Uma Krishnaswami, illustrated by Uma Krishnaswamy and newly published by Tulika Books in eight languages, it is a delightful and deceptively simple story. A small boy finds a tree seedling in the middle of a path and puts some stones around it to protect it. As time goes by, the tree grows, the path changes its course to go round the tree, and becomes a road and then a major thoroughfare with urban spread growing up around it. Meanwhile, we see the boy become a young man, a father and a grandfather. The illustrations contextualise the story in its Indian setting and extend the detail of the narrative, showing nature and development growing together. The tree is a landmark, a meeting place; the road takes people at different paces to their various destinations – and there’s always someone in a hurry, shouting “Out of the Way! Out of the Way!”

You can read a full review by Pooja Makhijani at Chicken Spaghetti from yesterday’s Blog Tour stop. I was also fascinated to read in Saffron Tree’s interview with (writer) Uma that part of her inspiration for the story came from her father reading a newspaper story to her about trees being planted in pot-holes to protest against the state of roads.

For our PaperTigers leg of the Blog Tour, I’m excited to present some artwork created in response to Out of the way! Out of the Way!. On Friday, I had the enormous pleasure of spending the afternoon with Class 2 (Ages 5-7) at St Benedict’s RC Primary School in Ampleforth, North Yorkshire (UK). We set the scene by looking at photographs from I is for Inda by Prodeepta Das (Frances Lincoln, 1996) and then read the story together, with plenty of resounding participation.

We looked closely at the illustrations, which are an effective blend of color and black ink vignettes, and picked out lots of details (you can see some of them here). Then the children divided into two groups to create their own artwork -

one group painting:

and the other working to draw detailed outlines first in pencil and then over the top in black ink.

Everything was then brought together into the final collage – and I’m sure you’ll all agree they’ve created a beautiful work of art.

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…Here are some details (note the footprints in the first one and the baskets, goats and skyscrapers in the second):

You can see all these photos and a couple more details over on our Flickr site…

Thank you, Mrs Andrew and Class 2 at St Benedict’s, for such a lovely afternoon; and thank you, Uma and Uma, for inviting PaperTigers to share in Out of the Way! Out of the Way!’s blog tour.

Now it’s time to get out of the way as the book continues its journey – you can see where it’s headed here…

Why Can’t I Play? A story about making friends by Elizabeth Hawkins and illustrated by Bill Bolton (Tamarind Books, 2010) starts off with plenty of reasons that young listeners will pick up on straight away as to why the children at the sandpit shouldn’t let Becca “the new girl” play with them. She blocks tunnels, spoils drawings in the sand and knocks down castles. When Thomas and the other children tell her to go away, she retaliates with the dreadful crocodiles and high prison tower etc. that she has for people like them at her house.

A few days later, Becca’s mother hands out Becca’s birthday invitations. The parents are glad to accept on behalf of their children, so they reluctantly go, worried about the terrors awaiting them at Becca’s house. Of course the parallel scenarios, such as the castellated treehouse, all turn out to be great fun and Becca herself is a fun playmate. Becca’s birthday wish, when she blows out her candles, is very telling: “I wish I could play with you in the park.” and the next day she does indeed ask to play with the other children. “Of course,” said Thomas, “You only had to ask!”

But did she? Why Can’t I Play? really is an excellent story about making friends, with universal appeal for young children, and this is emphasised by the inclusive diversity of the illustrations. The story shows how the hand of friendship has to be stretched from both sides. Becca’s behavior is inexcusable and will probably set young listeners against her – but by the time we get to the end, they might have realised that her meanness is also a result of her insecurity as a “new girl” (and we only find out her name when her mother hands out the party invitations – I suspect, like the other children in the story). So, while Becca is not exactly helping herself by being horrid to the other children, the story also reminds children of the importance of being welcoming towards newcomers, whether it’s at their local park or in their class at school.

And don’t forget, our current issue of PaperTigers is all about How Children Play Around the World, so if you haven’t already, head on over…

A while back, I wrote a Books at Bedtime  blog post about a book called Shin-chi’s Canoe by Nicola Campbell.  This book was about a young aboriginal boy who is taken away from his family to go to a residential school.  The history of residential schools in Canada is long and painful.  The impact of this education on young vulnerable aboriginal children was devastating and continues to affect many of the survivors today.  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was formed by the Canadian government to address the situation.  Its mandate is to learn about what happened in the residential schools and to inform all Canadians about the schools and their impact on aboriginals in Canada.

The Commission will enact its mandate through various national events, one of which has begun here in my hometown of Winnipeg.  Tonight, aboriginal authors and storytellers will gather to talk about the residential school experience in an evening of readings and discussion called “Writing Truth, Imagining Reconciliation.”  Although the event is not so much for children as about them under a particular and alienating system of education, it is of relevance to anyone who seeks to acknowledge and redress one of Canada’s historical wrongs.  For its part, PaperTigers has highlighted the Canadian First Nations community and its writings in its April-May 2010 issue.  Do check it out!