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.

It’s not too late to join this year’s Reading the World Challenge if you haven’t already – just take a look at this post for details.

In our family we have all joined together and read picture books set in Mongolia, which is our current focus on PaperTigers. I had to hunt around a bit but we came up with a good selection. I’m not going to go into a great deal of detail here as they are all gathered up in my Personal View, Taking a step into children’s books about Mongolia. We have really enjoyed delving into the culture and heritage of Mongolia and these picture books have been read all together and individually.

One bedtime Older Brother read Horse Song: the Naadam of Mongolia by Ted and Betsy Lewin (Lee and Low, 2008) to Little Brother – quite a long read and they were both engrossed. Watching them from the outside, as it were, I came to an added appreciation of the dynamics of Ted and Betsy’s collaboration, both in the energy of their shared enthusiasm and participation in the events surrounding the famous horse-race, and also of being struck by a busy, crowded scene one page and then giggling at the turn of expression on an individual study’s face the next.

And I’ll just share with you Little Brother’s reaction to Suho’s White Horse, which you can read about in a bit more detail in my Books at Bedtime post earlier this week:

It was a moving story. The governor made me angry because he broke his word and was cruel to Suho and his horse.
[Listening to the musical version played on the Mongolian horsehead fiddle, the morin khuur] Once you know the story, you can tell which part of the music is telling which part of the story. How do they make that music with just two strings? It fills me with awe.

I also read The Horse Boy: A Father’s Miraculous Journey to Heal His Son by Rupert Isaacson (Viking, 2009), an amazing story of a family’s journey to Mongolia in search of horses and shamans to seek healing for the torments that were gripping their five-year-old autistic son’s life: as Isaacson puts it with great dignity, his “emotional and physical incontinence”. If you have already read this humbling, inspiring book (and even if you haven’t), take a look at this recent interview three years on from their adventurous journey. Now I need to see the film!

And talking of films (which we don’t very often on PaperTigers, but I can’t resist mentioning this one), The Story of the Weeping Camel is a beautiful, gentle film that takes you right to the heart of Mongolian life on the steppe. Who would have thought a documentary film about a camel could be so like watching a fairy tale? Don’t be put off by the subtitles – our boys love this film. Take a look at the trailer -

But now it’s time to leave Mongolia and find out what everyone else has been reading… (more…)

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…)

Head on over to the main PaperTigers website to see our new Gallery featuring acclaimed artists Ted and Betsy Lewin, including artwork from their stunning picture book Horse Song: The Naadam of Mongolia (Lee and Low, 2008).

They wrote their first co-authored book, Gorilla Walk, in 1999 following a trip to see mountain gorillas in Uganda. Since then, their adventurous travels around the world have been inspiration for further collaboration and their individual artistic styles compliment each other perfectly in presenting both luminous panoramas and insighful, often amusing vignettes of the scenes and situations they encounter.

This past spring, I participated as a mentor in our local writers guild’s Sheldon Oberman Emerging Writers Mentor Program.  The program was named after Sheldon Oberman, a Winnipeg writer who is well known for his childrens’ books.  Oberman died in 2004 but his legacy lives on in the mentorship program and his wonderful childrens’ books, a few of which I’ll feature in this post.  Although my encounter with Sheldon Oberman was primarily through the legacy of the  mentorship program, my children were familiar with his books, having encountered them at their school.

The White Stone in the Castle Wall illustrated by Les Tait (Tundra Books, 1995) is the story of a poor little boy named John Tommy Fiddich, who with his white stone, considers himself “sometimes lucky, sometimes unlucky.”  Set in turn-of-the-century Toronto, the book is also about the building of one of the city’s most famous landmarks — Casa Loma — and its eccentric owner, Sir Henry Pellat.

The Always Prayer Shawl illustrated by Ted Lewin (Boyd Mills Press, 1994) is about a Jewish boy named Adam.  When Adam is a boy (and it is a time when ‘eggs were got from chickens, heat from chopped wood, and rides in wagons pulled by horses’), he receives a special gift from his grandfather — a prayer shawl.  His grandfather, a rabbi, tells him that although “some things change, some don’t.”  He tells him that one of the things that will not change is his name, Adam, and he gives Adam a prayer shawl.  Adam carries that prayer shawl with him all through his long life until many decades later he is able to give it to his grandson, Adam, when he is an old man.

TV Sal and The Game Show from Outer Space illustrated by Craig Terlson (Red Deer College Press, 1993) is about a girl sucked into a TV by TV station aliens.  This delightful story about TV addiction pokes fun at both parent and child.  I especially relate to Sal’s Mom who suggests to her TV watching daughter, “Would you like to do something different, dear?  Come out with us to look at the fog.”   I’m always nagging my children to get outside more.  It is while Sal’s family is out for a walk that Sal finds herself in that alien TV world and can’t get herself out.

Sheldon Oberman’s books are a delight and pleasure to read.  Hope you can find copies in your bookstore and library!

Tonight, in the northern hemisphere, is the longest night of the year. Especially in those places where winter has gripped the world, the light seems a long time coming – but this is the tipping point. From now on, the day-time will be imperceptibly longer. So Marion Dane Bauer and Ted Lewin‘s evocation of a forest world longing for the sun, The Longest Night (Holiday House, 2009), is a perfect bedtime read to snuggle up with at this time of year – and would be a lovely way to introduce the notion of long, cold winter’s nights in those parts of the world that don’t see snow!

While some forest creatures sleep through the winter, those still roaming seek to bring back the sun. The “night-dark” crow, the “mighty” moose and the “clever” fox all believe they are the ones who can do it – but the wind knows otherwise and tells them, to their disgust, that the little chickadee is the only one who can. The chickadee herself finds it hard to believe but she does the only thing she knows how. She sings and sings and wakes the sun: and the longest night is over.

The writing is full of onomatopeia and pleasing wordplay so children will soon know the story off by heart and still want to listen to it again and again: and that will be just fine because the illustrations, as well as the gentle, lilting poetry, are simply stunning! There are wonderful close-ups of the animals, as well as chilly landscapes – the deep, dark blue of the sky reflected in the slightly blue tinge to the snow – then suddenly, at the end, the blaze of light through the trees. Ted Lewin has created an utter feast for the eyes – and I just want to put that cover illustration on my wall and drink it in!

Do read this conversation with Marion and Ted about the book’s creation; and this interview with Marion. KidsLit and TTLG have also reviewed The Longest Night - and TTLG also profiles a non-fiction book called The Winter Solstice that sounds interesting…

In her post at the beginning of the month, Aline talked about books which help young people gain some insight into what it means to be a refugee, in light of World Refugee Day on the 20th June – and in fact we decided to bring her post up to the top on Friday to keep the day at the forefront of our minds.

She mentioned Four Feet, Two Sandals by Karen Williams and Khadra Mohammed (Eerdman, US 2008) and this really is a particularly special book for giving an idea of what life is like for children in a refugee camp.

Two other books for younger children which also highlight some of the difficulties faced by refugees but also, crucially, that in essence children are children the world over, are:

A True Person By Gabiann Marin, illustrated by Jacqui Grantford (New Frontier Publishing, 2007), in which a young girl, Zallah, is living with her mother in an Australian immigration detention centre, while they wait to hear if they will be allowed to stay in Australia – see our full review here; and…

One Green Apple by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Ted Lewin (Clarion Books, 2006), which tells the story of Farah, who has recently arrived in the US from the Middle East. She is not finding it easy to cope with a new culture and language – but on this, her second day of school, she is going on a field trip to an apple orchard and it is a chance for Farah and her classmates to make the first steps towards friendship and learn that there are ways to get over any barrier of language. Tone of voice, gestures, smiles – all these help to make Farah begin to feel welcome and recognise that some things can and will be just like they were at home.

Perhaps what makes the story so powerful is that Farah herself is the narrator – through the picture-book medium, Eve Bunting has given a clear voice to all those young people who arrive in a new place feeling vulnerable and unable to communicate. It is a story but it reflects certain aspects of reality – not everyone is nice and there are references to intolerance and impatience: but the overriding message for children in Farah’s situation is that it is possible to feel whole again; and it serves as a compelling reminder to children generally how to make a newcomer feel welcome and reassured.

Lewin’s stunning illustrations also deserve a special mention – they enhance the insight offered by the story through their perfectly attuned observation of body language as much as verbal communication; his children’s faces are perfect, whatever their expression. And the word luminosity comes to my mind every time I look at them, they are so enfused with dappled sunlight.

These are all well-written and beautifully presented books, which will make young children ponder, and probably ask lots of questions. Certainly they are best read aloud the first time they are introduced. Can anyone else recommend books for reading aloud to children which touch on the experiences of young refugees?