1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lin, Grace. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009. ISBN 978-0-316-03863-8.
2. PLOT SUMMARY
Grace Lin retells classic Chinese folktales and myths with her own delightful spin about a girl named Minli and her new friend Dragon as they set off on a mission to find the Old Man of the Moon so Minli can figure out how to bring good fortune to her poor family and Dragon can ask why he cannot fly.
3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is an exquisite Chinese folktale that leads readers on a wondrous quest with a young girl named Minli who wants to make her mother happy by finding the secret to good fortune.
Living in what Minli feels is poverty as the daughter of two rice farmers, Minli recognizes that her mother is constantly focused on what the family doesn't have. "Ma is right, Minli thought. What a poor fortune we have. Every day, Ba and Ma work and work and we still have nothing. I wish I could change our fortune" (12).
Inspired by her father's oral storytelling, Minli decides that the characters he describes in his stories are real and takes off with her talking goldfish in search of the Old Man of the Moon to answer her question about the secret to good fortune. On her adventure, she meets many other mythical characters including a Dragon, a poor boy with a water buffalo, a king, a poisonous tiger, a brave set of twins, and more. At each turn, Minli hears or remembers stories about the past of the Chinese people. And almost on cue, Lin sets up the current storyline to link the past to the present, usually relating them to a current state of conflict or a suddenly introduced mystery that needs to be resolved by the main characters.
Lin's storytelling is inventive, magical and complemented by her vivid illustrations. Coloring the titles of the ancient myths being told within Minli's folktale and setting them off with a different font are great visual cues for children and help them understand that there is a strong likelihood the story may jump off of the typical timeline, which can be a common storytelling method in some Asian cultures' folktales. Although Minli's story, as the protagonist, is very linear with a clear beginning of her journey, middle, climax, and end, the flashbacks of the myths and how they have influenced the different characters she meets are not.
The power of the story comes not only from Lin's portrayal of Minli as a resolute little girl who loves her family but Lin's own attachment to the characters she creates and the ancient stories they are retelling -- with Lin's own modern twist. "It is a fantasy inspired by the Chinese folktales that enchanted me in my youth and the land and culture that fascinates me in my adulthood," Lin says in her notes at the end of the novel" (298). Lin takes great care in portraying all of the characters in her book as having strengths and flaws, particularly Magistrate Tiger, who may easily be seen by children as the villain in the book for his bossy and greedy ways, but he is not entirely unrelatable to children's real-life experiences with bullies or cranky adults.
Although not focused on modern-day Chinese people, and representing one of the more often published about Asian cultures, Lin's novel on Chinese culture allows middle-grade readers to be captivated by an adventurous and loving storyline that is easy to read and get lost in.
My 11-year-old son read it in four sittings, each time remarking that the chapters were short, even though there were a lot of them, which helped him feel like he was flying through the book. He also enjoyed how the characters he thought were minor in the beginning, came back around and were connected by the end of the story. In many ways, we wondered if Lin was influenced by the Wizard of Oz, or if Frank Baum might have been influenced by Chinese cultural folktales.
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon opened a window for my son to peek into ancient Chinese culture through commonly shared stories that were foreign to him. He enjoyed the experience and said that Dragon was his favorite character, because he was loyal and protective of Minli, no matter what magical beast they ran into. He also liked that although the myths within the folktale were telling morals, they were not lecturing children about being thankful for what they have. In essence, they were asking children to recognize they have power and can make positive changes not only in their lives but in the lives of the people they love, even though they are young and/or poor.
4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S) and AWARDS
Newbery Honor Book
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature
From School Library Journal
"The author's writing is elegant, and her full-color illustrations are stunning. Minli's determination to help her family, as well as the grief her parents feel at her absence, is compelling and thoroughly human."
From Booklist
"With beautiful language, Lin creates a strong, memorable heroine and a mystical land. Stories, drawn from a rich history of Chinese folktales, weave throughout her narrative, deepening the sense of both the characters and the setting and smoothly furthering the plot."
5. CONNECTIONS
Each character in Lin's book, past and present, is connected in some way. In fact, the Old Man of the Moon and his red string connects generations of people in China.
How are the students in your classroom connected? If you start with a large roll of yarn, can you go around the room finding ways that each person is connected in life by their similarities outside of school?
Have the first child hold the end of the yarn and announce something about themselves. If it is similar to someone else in the room, students should raise their hands, and allow the first student to call on someone, pass the yarn, and allow that student to announce something different about their lives. Play can continue around the room and include the teacher to show how we have more in common than we might think.
No comments:
Post a Comment