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 Book 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)…
I can’t believe this book was first published 25 years ago: but Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story from China, retold by Ai-Ling Louie and illustrated by Ed Young, is just as fresh today – and of course, being a fairy-tale, it is timeless anyway. It makes a lovely bed-time story – and would work well, too, as a class story-time readaloud.
The story will be familiar in its essence to most children and this is a lovely variation. Or perhaps I should say that the Cinderella story we all know and love follows the pattern of this lovely story: on the book’s dedication page, there is a salient quotation from Iona and Peter Opie’s The Classic Fairy Tales (now a bit of a classic itself). This dates the story of Yeh Shen to The Miscellaneous Record of Yu Yang, which first appeared during the T’ang Dynasty (618-907AD), about 1,000 years before the oldest European version.
The major elements are all there: the rags and chores, the wicked step-mother, the party and the magic slippers. The main difference is that the fairy god-mother figure in the story is actually a magic fish. The fish is Yeh-Shen’s only friend until it is killed by the step-mother. Yeh-Shen learns of it magic powers and gathers up the bones, which can now grant her special wishes. At first, her requests are bound up with survival as she asks for food to eat; but then, as the party approaches:
“Oh, dear friend,” she said, kneeling before the precious bones, “I long to go to the festival, but I cannot show myself in these rags. Is there somewhere I could borrow clothes fit to wear to the feast?” At once she found herself dressed in a gown of azure blue [and] on her tiny feet were the most beautiful slippers she had ever seen. They were woven of golden threads, in a pattern like the scales of a fish…
The fish is also the motif for Ed Young’s stunning illustrations throughout: each image from the story is set against an enormous, carp-like fish, to the extent that sometimes the characters are even enclosed within its gaping mouth. The backgrounds are starkly white but the pages are divided up into red-bordered, screen-like frames, which also help to convey the magic at work, since the fish’s bulk simply moves across them. His shading is beautiful… and I would love to know how many colors he actually used!
One of my favorite teaching units of the year is the Many Faces of Alice unit. I begin by reading the book aloud, have the kids take a close look at the various illustrators, and then ask them to do a project of their own. When Roxanne Feldman came to Dalton she came up with the wonderful idea of putting a complete kid- illustrated version of the book on-line; we did this in 1998 and in 1999.
In 2000 I began having the children do Toy Theater productions. I bought a beautiful toy theater at Pollack’s Toy Theater Museum in London , had the kids create scenery and puppets, a script, and we filmed the results and put them online here, here, here. and here.
Then last year Roxanne came up with a new idea — to have the kids do a sort of book trailer — that is, they’d do a series of drawings and then a voice-over. The result wouldn’t be quite stop-motion animation (as that was way too time-consuming), but no longer a series of still pages either. We didn’t put last year’s version on-line, but this year’s is here on our class blog. Do visit and comment! I’m thrilled with the results and I think the kids are too.
A few weeks ago, while my students were at gym, an associate teacher and I created a yellow construction paper road that led from the door of the classroom to Oz, in this case the Emerald City pages of Robert Sabuda’s pop-up version carefully balanced on a stool in the center of the classroom with a pile of Baum’s books elegantly scattered below.
When the kids came into the classroom they were instructed musically to “Follow the Yellow Brick Road,” and did so to our Oz, picked up a book, and went to Munchkin Land — I mean, their desks — where they discovered a few tasty gummy letters (in various colors including green and gold) and a little chapbook.
And so we began our study of L. Frank Baum’s American fairy tale, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I love having the kids read this book after our study of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It is truly THE American fairy tale. While I’ve never seen anything that makes clear that Baum was at all influenced by Carroll’s tale, I don’t see how he could have avoided it. Alice was so popular and it is the story of a little girl going into a fantasy land, after all. Certainly it is very different — Carroll’s story is almost plotless while Baum’s is very dramatic and full of adventure. Carroll is more interested, it seems, in language, puns, parody, and humor; Baum seems more interested in creating an entertaining story for American boys and girls. Both are fun in very different ways.
I have my students read the book (a facsimile of the original with Denslow’s illustrations) on their own; it is completely accessible to all levels of readers. I have on display the other thirteen Oz books by Baum and additional copies of the two that follow the first one for those who finish quickly. I ask them to write/draw a response to each chapter in the little booklets, but that is all. I really want them to have fun reading the book and they do!
Before beginning I show them, “The Dreamer of Oz, a docudrama about L. Frank Baum which is very interesting because he is so completely and utterly different from Carroll. And the biographical details that connect to the story of Dorothy and Oz fascinate them.
After they are all finished with the book we watch the MGM movie together. Some have seen it before, but not all. The differences intrigue them — most of all those familiaruby slippers, silver in the book. We also watch a documentary on the making of the movie that further captivates. And then the kids write an essay answering the question: Is the movie a good or a bad witch, I mean, adaptation of the book? You can read some of this year’s responses by way of the class blog (go to the children’s blogs on the right to read their posts on this topic).
When time permits the kids do projects. Last year they made board games and had a blast playing them during the last few days of school. I’m not sure if we will have time this year, but here are a few of last year’s to give you a taste.
At the very, very, very end of school when we’ve finished the presentation portfolios for the parent reception and cleaned the room, I show them Disney’s Return to Oz. Few seem to be familiar with this film, but it is fascinating after reading Baum’s book and seeing the MGM movie — a combination of the second and third Oz books it connects to Baum, the books’ illustrators, the MGM movie, and is a story all of its own.
It is an ideal final unit of the year — every kid enjoys the book, the movie is still fun to watch, writing about it a snap, and all in all a lotta fun! If you have never read the book and only know the story from the MGM movie, give it a try — it is quite different and very entertaining.
