telophase: (Mushishi - to see the unseen)
telophase ([personal profile] telophase) wrote2009-11-05 06:09 pm
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Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

I picked up Where the Mountain Meets the Moon at the library the other day, and took it to work today to read at lunch. By the end of lunch, I was 3/4 of the way through, and just finished it off, and am now in the bittersweet place, where I am content and happy that I've read this wonderful book, and sad that I've read this wonderful book and now it is over and I can't look forward to sitting down and reading it for the first time again.

Minli is a young girl in a poor village. Her father tells her stories constantly, and her mother bemoans their poor fortune. One day Minli, inspired by her father's tale of the Old Man of the Moon, decides to take matters into her own hands and travel to the Old Man of the Moon to ask how they can change their fortune. The story is a fairy-tale quest of the best sort - the quest itself is mythic, and every character in the book stops and tells another tale, each of which bends around and comes back later on.

It also contains wonderful illustrations by the author. Highly recommended.
inkstone: small blue flowers resting on a wooden board (reading)

[personal profile] inkstone 2009-11-06 12:13 am (UTC)(link)
I loved this book. When my cousin's daughter gets old enough (she's less than 2 right now), I plan on giving this to her.
octopedingenue: (ROCK ON.)

[personal profile] octopedingenue 2009-11-06 12:28 am (UTC)(link)
I loved this book so much! I wanted to time-travel back to my elementary school self and give me a copy. All the people in the story telling each other stories! The dragon! The goldfish! The evil monkeys! (I never liked monkeys.) The color art!

I also love Lin's other books, Year of the Dog and Year of the Rat, which are like an awesome Taiwanese-American Ramona Quimby and which I definitely want to be twelve books.

[identity profile] telophase.livejournal.com 2009-11-06 12:33 am (UTC)(link)
I read the descriptions of Year of the Dog/Rat on Amazon and I wasn't all that interested, but you comparing them to Ramona Quimby definitely makes me want to read them!

[identity profile] herchuckness.livejournal.com 2009-11-06 08:32 pm (UTC)(link)
This sounds awesome, thanks for the rec. *bookmarks*