Lin, Grace - Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

Minli is a vivacious girl living in village on drab Fruitless Mountain. Her family has never had the best of luck, and in order to change that, she sets out to find the Old Man of the Moon.

This is an incredibly charming book that includes tales and stories from everyone Minli encounters along the way. I am partial to this, as I love getting additional stories, and I love the way Lin remixes and retells Chinese folktales. I had a lot of fun hunting through for the bits and pieces of story that I remember, or trying to guess at where Lin had gotten the original inspiration from. She does include a bibliography at the end, though I really want a DVD commentary type thing that goes into exactly what changes she made. I was very familiar with all the stories she used, although I don't know if other people will be? Comments?

I was a bit put off by "brown" equating drab in the beginning description of the book, but I suspect that may be a personal thing.

I also love how Lin gradually includes more and more characters, and although some of twists and turns were easy to guess for an older reader (I think the target audience is 8-12), I think Lin's playing around with tropes and stories is enough to capture the attention of readers of most ages.

Also, this is a bit of a minor detail, but the book production is gorgeous. Each chapter is headed by a painting by Lin, all done in the style of paper cutting. The tales and stories within the tale have a fancier font, and the book is printed in color, not just black and white. It's really gorgeous, and now I want a copy for my own shelf.

Really fun, and entertained me beyond expectation for a book targeted for 8-12 year olds.

Links:
- starlady's review