Master story-teller Laurence Yep took his inspiration for his magical version of the Beauty and the Beast fairy-tale from a traditional Chinese tale with a Southern Chinese setting. His The Dragon Prince (HarperCollins, 1997) has some satisfying twists and turns in the narrative and an impressive dragon in the role parallel to the Beast: visually too, thanks to Kam Mak’s powerful illustrations. We just love the noble, enormous, golden dragon, and completely empathised with Beauty/Seven’s inherent trust in the beauty she finds in him, that goes deeper than the fear – even when the Dragon insists, “But you really should be afraid” – yes, Little Brother especially loved that line!

Seven is set apart from her older sisters from the start: while they work in the fields, she does beautiful embroidery, which is then sold at the market, thereby providing the family with the sustenance the rocky ground cannot. The symbolism of this carries the narrative through to its conclusion (it’s a fairy tale so it’s irrelevant to question the point of the other sister’s activities, farming land on which nothing will grow). Three is jealous of Seven – and never more so than when, instead of suffering a terrible fate after agreeing to marry a firece dragon in return for her father’s life, Seven arrives on a visit to her family on a ‘chair of gold and coral’ and with all her maids behind her, descending from the sky in a ‘glittering procession’.

Three therefore tricks Seven and takes her place, preparing the Dragon Prince for a change in his wife’s appearance by saying she’s been ill – which makes for an interesting take on Beauty and the Beast: the Prince “didn’t care. In that short time, Seven had come to mean everything to him, not for her beauty but for her kindness.”

So do they live happily ever after? Well, I highly recommend you get hold of this great story and find out for yourself, and enjoy some cultural nuances along the way. For example, one bit that made me chuckle and served to show the Dragon Prince’s state of mind as he searches deperately for Seven: he buys at a market “without bargaining”!

Gathering Books also featured The Dragon Prince earlier this year, as part of a wonderful series of in-depth posts about Chinese fairy-tales – in case you missed them, here are the other links; they’re definitely worth a read: Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China (which Little Brother read for our Reading the World Challenge in 2008) and Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story from China (which I have also featured as a Book at Bedtime in the past)…

Renowned throughout the world as the founding head of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Genghis Khan’s legacy as “the first children’s writer” is perhaps generally less well-known. But the strong oral tradition in Mongolia means that many of his stories are still told today, and some can now also be read in English, thanks to a fine anthology of Mongolian Folktales published recently.

According to the National Library of Mongolia, at one time Mongolia’s “most popular slogan was ‘Everything for children’” and in 2003 the library opened its Book Palace for Children in Ulaanbaatar, which does indeed seem to provide everything in the way of books a young visitor to the Library could possibly desire. Meanwhile, author and publisher Dashdondog Jamba has spent his whole life ensuring that children in Mongolia have access to stories and the written word, taking his mobile library out to the remotest areas of the country, first by camel and oxen, more recently by truck. You can read his account of one of his journeys here.

Many children’s stories from and about Mongolia reflect its place in world history. The cultural heritage of those times remains strongly evident today, especially when you look beyond the urban areas towards the vast grassland steppe that consitutes most of Mongolia’s geography. This means that picture books with a contemoporary setting and the retellings of traditional stories merge to offer insight into each other that is relevant to today’s young readers, wherever they come from.

The list of books given below is not long, and I’m sure there are others to be found: but in the meantime, all of these are enriching and worth seeking out.

Picture books

Bolormaa Baasansuren, adapted by Helen Mixter,
My Little Roundhouse
Groundwood Books, 2009.

A delightful picture book, which brings the nomadic life of a Mongolian community to life through the eyes of one-year-old Jilu, who shares his experiences of all the roundness in his life, from the ger that is his home to the encircling love that enfolds him. There’s plenty here for young children to contrast and compare with in their own lives. My Little Roundhouse was selected as part of the 2010 Spirit of PaperTigers book set.

Demi,
Marco Polo
Marshall Cavendish Children, 2008.

Marco Polo’s adventurous life is relayed through compact text and sumptuous illustrations bursting out of borders that reflect the rich patterns and brocades of the Silk Route. We read about his many years working under Kublai Khan and the sceptiscism of his fellow countrymen back in Venice. A beautifully depicted map shows the extent of his Travels.

Demi,
Chingis Khan/Genghis Khan
Henty Holt and Company, 1991/Marshall Cavendish 2008.

Originally published as Chingis Khan in 1991, this classic title has recently been reissued as a Marshall Cavendish Classic with the slightly differently spelled title Genghis Khan.

A picture book biography (more…)

We’ve recently posted our celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month to the PaperTigers website (click now or click later, but do hop on over and enjoy the new features) and, as usual, we had more material then we could fit into the update. So here are some additional thoughts for you to mull over:

I found interesting words by authors Linda Sue Park and Laurence Yep pointing to an intersection, so to speak, between fantasy/science fiction and multicultural literature. And the idea that the themes and scenarios explored in some science fiction books might resonate with immigrant and biracial children is an intriguing one…

In a video interview to Reading rockets, Laurence Yep speaks of “adapting to different realities” in a time when books reflecting his own experiences didn’t exist:

I lived in an Afro-American neighborhood and went to school in Chinatown. So the books that I really found true to my own life were fantasy and science-fiction, because in those books you have children from an ordinary world or ordinary place taken to another world, where they have to learn strange, new customs and a strange, new language. Those books talked about adapting, and that was something I did every time I got on and off the bus.

And Linda Sue Park says, in her answer to a question from Cynthia Leitich Smith about the lack of non-white protagonists in fantasy and science fiction:

Fantasy and science fiction generally posit the protagonist as an “other,” amid races and species that are not of this world. Some writers whose lives are lived as part of the majority might feel that they have to leave the real world, as it were, in order to place their characters in environs of alienation. But writers of color don’t need to do that–we’ve got plenty of alienation right here (…). As we continue to get more comfortable in the mainstream of both life and literature, I think we’ll start to see more characters of color in other genres. These things take time.

From a time when fantasy and science fiction about “alien worlds” were closer to home for a young Chinese American boy than the rest of the available stories, to a time when all genres, including fantasy and science fiction, feature characters of color… Now that’s something to think about and root for.

Yesterday was National Poetry Day in the UK and the winners of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award were announced. One of the winning poems was written in the style of a mediaeval ballad but was a commentry on the prime-ministership of Tony Blair. The prizes include school visits and, for older winners, a week-long residential course – and, of course, having their poems published in an anthology – wow! When some of the winning poems are up and running on The Poetry Society’s website, I’ll add a link… here they are!

Stories in verse make really satisfying read-alouds. Children pick up the rhymes and rhythms and love to preempt what’s coming or chant along once the verse becomes familiar. Mine always surprise me by being able to quote what seem to me great tracts compared with what I would be able to come up with! As I’ve mentioned before, we love Julia Donaldson’s books and a favorite is her retelling of the Chinese legend The Magic Paintbrush, which reads in true ballad form, over many 4-lined rhyming stanzas, and with repetitions and recurring themes, such as the steaming pot of shrimps the young heroine Shen conjures up before her astonished family:

“Did you catch some shrimps, Shen?
Did you catch some fish?
Did you gather oysters
To fill the empty dish?”

It’s beautifully illustrated by Joel Stewart, who has a particular talent for illustrating poetry, from Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky to Carol Ann Duffy’s zany Underwater Farmyard, another book we have all enjoyed.

Reading this Magic Paintbrush (more…)

While cookbook authors seduce with rapturous descriptions of sizzling butter and caramelized onions, children’s book authors and illustrators cook up things in a differently enticing way. Bound between hard or soft covers, stories to satisfy the appetite of hungry readers abound. But too many book choices can be as overwhelming as an abundant produce aisle or farmer’s market. Just what is that Samurai Shortstop all about? And what of The Arrival, First Daughter or Mismatch? Discovering new books and writers is as exciting as trying an unfamiliar new fruit.

Identifying quality children’s literature, multicultural literature in particular, can be a time consuming task. Luckily, we have many tried and true sources to help us recognize the special tastes of Paul Yee or Laurence Yep, Rachna Gilmore or Mitali Perkins.

For a feast of book and book-related offerings we hope you’ll turn to us, of course. We also recommend CCBC (Cooperative Children’s Book Center), ALAN (Assembly of Literature for Adolescents), the Edge of the Forest, School Library Journal and the Horn Book. And the ever-growing garden of great Kidlit blogs such as Shen’s Blog and The Fire Escape, to name just two.

In the world of children’s literature pickings are never slim. Hungry readers are lucky to be so well fed.