Over the last couple of months we have been gathering together a children’s literature feast from Mongolia: for, as Dashdondog Jamba, writer and founder of Mongolia’s Mobile Children’s Library puts it, “After eating candies there remains nothing. But after reading a book you will have it in your head.”

You will find:

…an interview with Dashdondog Jamba -

“I think that one of the most effective ways to ensure the availability of books translated into one’s own language is through direct contact with foreign authors. We have translated many books in this way. I translate books in the hope that children in different countries will meet each other and become close friends.”

- as well as the reprint of an article he wrote for Bookbird and a review of his recent book Mongolian Folktales;

…an interview with Dori Jones Yang, in which she talks about her recent YA novel, Daughter of Xanadu and more -

“The main message is that it’s important to get to know foreigners. In every country, in every era, it’s easy to slip into an ‘us-vs.-them’ mentality, to look on ‘them’ as sub-human so that we can wage war on them. But when you get to know someone from a faraway country as a human being with hopes and dreams, your worldview shifts. By learning how others see the world, you come to understand yourself and your own people better, and war no longer seems like a sensible option.”

…a peek at the fruits of the collaboration between award-winning artists/writers Ted and Betsy Lewin in our Gallery, including images from their book Horse Song: The Naadam of Mongolia (Lee & Low Books, 2008);

…Personal View “Taking a step into children’s books about Mongolia” by Marjorie Coughlan

…revisits to Bolormaa Baasansuren’s interview and Gallery; and to Helen Mixter’s Personal View

Our new theme for the coming weeks will be Children and their Grandparents – we have already begun our focus on books which explore this joyful, enriching relationship through our Week-end Book Reviews (a new, regular feature on our blog); in the coming weeks look out for authors and illustrators sharing some special moments with their own grandparents, as well as a Personal View from Swapna Dutta, who shares insight into Bengali writer Dakshinaranjan Mitra-Mazumdar’s story collections…

Come walk with us along the road of special stories from around the world – and maybe share some of your own memories with us along the way.

We are delighted to welcome author Dashdondog Jamba to PaperTigers. A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the amazing Mobile Library he founded in Mongolia some twenty years ago and we also featured a reprint of an article he wrote for IBBY’s journal Bookbird. Dashdondog has published more than seventy books, some of which can be read in English on the ICDL; he also has a blog, which includes translations of some of his poems, as featured in a recent Poetry Friday post. I’m grateful to Ramendra Kumar for putting me in contact with Dashdondog initially, and to Dashdondog himself for taking my inability to communicate in Mongolian in his stride – as well as for sending some great photos.

You have devoted your life to making it possible for children to have access to books. Can you give us some background to what Mongolia was like when you started out as a writer in the 1960s?

In 1958 the agricultural collectivization policy, which entailed handing livestock over to cooperatives, was almost completed in Mongolia. And even though my family didn’t like it, we delivered our livestock to the agricultural cooperative. It was a difficult time for rural herders to part from their beloved livestock. I clearly remember the moment when my grandma was crying about the “pitiable livestock”, and breeding lambs and kids were bleating and trying to run back to their shelters. Yet writers had written that herders had given their livestock to the agricultural cooperatives voluntarily. At that time my first book was published by the State Publishing House. I was 17 years old and in secondary school. From my first book you can only feel the heart of a boy who loves his lambs and calves. So I am always glad that I chose children’s literature as a career far from politics.

What changes have you witnessed, and indeed been instrumental in over the years?

For me who has been witness of two different societies there is opportunity to compare their weaknesses and advantages. I thankfully welcomed democracy, which brought us the freedom to think and have our own opinions. The freedom declared by socialism was limited, like wearing tight clothes. I can bear witness to it because I was considered as anti-communist and punished by losing the right to publish books.

What prompted you to start your now famous travelling library?

In 1990 Mongolia renounced communism and chose democracy with a free-market economy. During the privatization of property former children’s organizations were not taken over by anybody because they were considered as profitless and uneconomic. The formerly state-run children’s book publishing house became a private school, the children’s library became a private bank and the children’s cinema became the stock exchange.

Even though I had fought against it, my efforts didn’t work. Then I asked myself what we should be writing for children in this new society to read. It was unthinkable to present them with books written along the lines of the only way we had open to us under the socialist regime.

I felt the only place that could answer my question was the International Youth Library in Munich: so I went there. They gave me their list of the best children’s books. And I started to translate those books and published 108 books with my own money. Then I founded the mobile library and provided the rural children with those books. That is the most suitable activity for the nomadic life.

The mobile library was awarded the IBBY-Asahi reading Promotion Award in 2006. In your acceptance speech you shared something that you tell the children who come to the library: “After eating candies there remains nothing. But after reading a book you will have it in your head.” You said that, in the same way that children like to eat sweets from around the world, you would use the award to make it possible for Mongolian children to enjoy books written and published in different countries. Has that indeed been possible? (more…)

Suho’s White Horse: A Mongolian Legend is the retelling of one of the legends that explains the origins of Mongolia’s national musical instrument, the morin khuur, or horse hair fiddle, which always has a carved horse’s head at the top of its pegbox.

Suho, a young Mongolian shepherd boy, rescues and rears a white foal. A few years later he is persuaded to enter a horse-race with the governor’s daughter’s hand in marriage as the prize. With his beautiful white horse, of course Suho wins the race – but when the governor finds out that Suho is a shepherd he not only goes back on his word, but has his soldiers beat Suho up and steals the horse.

Suho manages to get home and is nursed back to health. Meanwhile, the white horse escapes. Incensed, the governor orders his men to catch the white horse – and if they can’t catch it, to kill it. The white horse does manage to return to Suho but is so badly injured that it dies. Suho is heartbroken but the horse comes to him in a dream and tells him to use different parts of his body to create a musical instrument – and so the morin khuur is born.

This retelling of Suho’s White Horse by Yuzo Otsuka, and translated by Richard McNamara and Peter Howlett (RIC Publications, 2006) is great for reading aloud, with plenty of detail. Both Older Brother and Little Brother became emotionally involved in the story very quickly, reacting to the different stages with outrage, horror and sadness. Hans Christian Andersen Award winner (1980) Suekichi Akaba‘s illustrations are beautiful, conveying the vastness of the steppe as well as the story’s emotive narrative.

And a real bonus with this edition is the accompanying CD that contains a musical retelling of the legend played on the morin khuur itself by “the horse-head fiddle’s finest player” Li Bo (scroll down this page to read an interview with him). We were all captivated by the haunting music and the boys had quite a deep discussion of which bit of music referred to which bit of the story.

I’m excited to have found this recording of Suho’s White Horse on You Tube with Lai Haslo playing the morin khuur and Zhang Lin on the Chinese dulcimer. I hope you enjoy it as much as we have – listen out for the horse galloping.

Dori Jones Yang,
Daughter of Xanadu
Delacorte Press, 2011.

Ages 12+

In 13th Century Mongolia the Kubilai Khan’s granddaughter Emmajin is about to turn fifteen, marking the shift from childhood to womanhood. Emmajin, however, is not like other girls. She has no intention of getting married and does everything she can to fend off prospective suitors. Her best friend is her (male) first cousin Suren. They horse-ride and practise archery together; and as far as Emmajin is concerned, nothing is going to change after her birthday – except that she is more determined than ever to become a soldier and gain honor for her family by great deeds on the battle-field.

Before contemplating her becoming a soldier, Emmajin’s grandfather gives her the task of finding out all she can about the homeland of certain visiting foreign merchants, in order to promote the Khan’s intentions to conquer the world. So enters into her life the Venetian Marco Polo; and so begins Emmajin’s actual growing-up, as she learns from Marco that there are different ways of doing and thinking. Her task is further complicated by her increasing attraction to him, and she soon finds herself facing dilemmas of loyalty and questioning the principles of conquest that she has grown up with.

Drawing on the Journeys of Marco Polo, Dori Jones Yang has created a fast-paced book that brings the Mongol Empire to life with plenty of historical detail. The story encompasses adventure, heartbreak and divided loyalties, and the exhilaration and challenges faced by a girl determined to make it on her own terms in a man’s world. Emmajin is a feisty, outspoken character, and the candid first-person narrative, complete with quandaries and attempts at self-justification, as well as acknowledgments of failings, means that readers will come to love Emmajin, even though her original tenets, founded in a culture bent on building empire, may be alienating to today’s readers. As the book progresses and Emmajin’s at times almost arrogant certainties are challenged, readers will be increasingly drawn to her.

Emmajin and Marco Polo’s relationship colors the whole book. As readers follow them through increasingly adventurous exploits, such as dragon-hunting and battle, the book becomes harder and harder to put down. From the start, Daughter of Xanadu challenges readers to ponder both their own views and their tolerance of others’ views; and by the end, we have not only found a friend in Emmajin, but also decided we would like to know what happens next…

Marjorie Coughlan
March 2011

Over the next few weeks we will be focusing particularly on Mongolia as our new theme on PaperTigers. We are delighted to begin with an interview with Dori Jones Yang, author of the recently released book, Daughter of Xanadu.

Dori Jones Yang grew up in Ohio, the daughter of a bookseller, and fell in love with foreign travel at an early age. Among other languages, she speaks fluent Mandarin and has lived in Singapore and Hong Kong, where she was foreign correspondent for Business Week.

Her first book, The Secret Voice of Gina Zhang, was a Skipping Stones Honor Book in 2001, and was also awarded the Pleasant T. Rowland Prize for Fiction for Girls. Her most recent book is Daughter of Xanadu, set in 13th century Mongolia, under the Khubilai Khan.

Dori lives near Seattle with her husband Paul Yang; they have three grown-up children.
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Your latest book, Daughter of Xanadu, is set in the thirteenth-century Mongol Empire and conveys a great deal of what life was like under Khubilai Khan. What research did you do and at what point did you find your story within it? How much did you draw on Marco Polo’s writing?

Marco Polo’s own book about his travels inspired me. He tells the tale of Ai-Jaruk, a Mongolian princess who defeated all would-be suitors in wrestling and won the right to become a warrior and live her own life. That story sparked my imagination. But the character I created, Emmajin, is an archer, not a wrestler, and she is deeper and more thoughtful.

Daughter of Xanadu’s heroine, Emmajin, is a forceful character whose views are increasingly challenged as the book progresses, mostly through her contact with Marco Polo, “the foreigner.” How difficult was it to write of Emmajin’s convictions and in particular her determination to become a soldier?

In my life, I was one of the first women students at Princeton and one of the early women business journalists, so I understand what it feels like to break into traditionally male worlds. However, I know little about the military and never aspired to be a soldier, so I had to imagine that desire. Mainly, Emmajin wanted to earn respect, so she aimed for the most highly admired profession in her society: war hero.

One of the many themes explored in the book is the gulf between the reality of war and the reshaping of those experiences into epic tales told after the event. How important did you feel it was not to shy away from giving a vivid description of the Battle of Vochan?

Marco Polo himself described the Battle of Vochan in dramatic terms, how the Mongol archers faced thousands of elephants, so I openly borrowed from him. However, I do believe that stories of battles are retold in overly glorious ways meant to encourage young soldiers to fight, and I wanted to make sure Emmajin realized that.

What do you hope today’s young readers will relate to and ponder in the story?

The main message is that it’s important to get to know foreigners. In every country, in every era, it’s easy to slip into an ‘us-vs.-them’ mentality, to look on ‘them’ as sub-human so that we can wage war on them. But when you get to know someone from a faraway country as a human being with hopes and dreams, your worldview shifts. By learning how others see the world, you come to understand yourself and your own people better, and war no longer seems like a sensible option.

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Dori in Mongolia paying a fiddle with a carved horse’s head

and Mongolian Yurts photographed by Dori



Read the rest of the interview here

Franki at A Year of Reading has gathered together some fantastic projects by children “to make the world a better place”, including her own daughter and her friends. These are all inspirational stories – do follow up on all her links! I do just have to mention this one though:

How about Capucine who I learned about from Stella at My World-Mi Mundo. Capucine, a four year old, is helping to make sure that her friends in Mongolia have books. She would like to open a library for them. Capucine already understands the power of her words, the Internet, and making a difference.

As the researcher for our Eventful World calendar, I am always searching for events that highlight children’s and young adults’ literature. As you can imagine, it is fairly easy to find events taking place in Canada or the United States so when I find out about events happening in other Pacific Rim countries it can be especially exciting. Imagine my thrill when award-winning children’s book illustrator John Shelley emailed me with regards to a workshop that he hosted in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia!

Originally from the U.K. John resides in Tokyo and is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) . In June, he and fellow SCBWI Japan chapter member Holly Thompson traveled to Mongolia and hosted a three day workshop for children’s authors and illustrators. Over 40 participants attended the event with John addressing the illustrating aspects of children’s literature and Holly addressing the writing. Despite the major challenges involved (few of the attendees even spoke English!) John and Holly were able to cover the whole gamut of children’s publishing, from story ideas to story boarding, submissions to marketing and promotion. A very successful workshop indeed!

I encourage you to visit John’s blog to learn more about the workshop, the participants, and the state of the children’s book market in Mongolia. As John states in his blog:

We learned a lot through this and other experiences. Children’s publishing in Mongolia is in a state of development. The population of the whole country is less than 3 million, and as the number of people who can afford to buy children’s books is very small, the market is limited…Holly and I both felt a keen desire to help Mongolian illustrators make a name for themselves outside the country. The fundamental problem is simple – with a weak and limited local market for children’s books in Mongolia, writers and illustrators are faced with the choice to either create a stronger publishing market locally, or establish a bilingual agency that will promote work internationally. It’s a slow process, but people are aware of what needs to be done and will get there in the end, with help.

How interesting is that?