Silk Tapestry and Other Chinese Folktales

Atangan, Patrick. Silk Tapestry and Other Chinese Folktales. NBM Publishing Inc., 2004. ISBN 1-56163-403-4

Plot

This book contains two illustrated tales drawn from Chinese folkloric tradition.

In the first story, the world begins as an egg with a formless surface. Pan-gu, the first man, emerges and separates the clouds from the sea. He sculpts a mountain. A phoenix and a sea turtle help him. He waits for others like him to arrive.

In the second story, an old woman dreams of life as a grand lady in a palace. She awakes and with her daughter goes to the fields to gather food. Her brothers meet her there and try to take a piece of silk she carries. She tells them it was a gift to her from the river god, the dragon-spirit of the Yangtse, which she helped when she bandaged its belly wound. The dragon-spirit tells her that the silk will give her good dreams. And if she sews her dream into the cloth, it will come true. With the help of her daughter and a songbird, the old woman works hard to make her dream come true.

In the final story, a boy named Lap-Xuong loves two things: painting and eating pork sausages. His paintings were so great that they came to life. He is abducted by a queen who wants to use Lap-Xuong's paintings to increase her wealth. He sees she is an unhappy person, so he paints a peach for her. She impatiently takes his paintbrush away and gives it to her servant. It will not paint for him or for any of her scholars. The queen sends the boy to jail where he paints a beautiful paradise. She refuses to enter until he paints a golden throne for her.

Critical Evaluation

The stories told in this volume are illustrated with comic book-style characters. There are many iconic Chinese images such as dragons, mountain scenes, and stylized depictions of wind and water. But the people are cartoonish. They remind me more of comic book characters than than the stylized Japanese characters in The Yellow Jar. Comic book touches like a "whoomp!" with stars and moons to show action feel out of place. The stories are interesting, but the illustrations do not quite fit the subject matter.

Annotations

Three traditional folktales, The Story of Pan-Gu, The Silk Tapestry, and Sausage-Boy and His Magic Brush are told through illustrations and simple language which evoke past times in China.

Author

Patrick Atangan comes from a family of accountants but has known since he was a child that he would always be involved in art.

Genre

Fiction – folk tales

Curriculum Ties

Language Arts – folk tales

Social Sciences – Chinese folk tales and history

Booktalk Ideas

Sausage-Boy and His Magic Brush is short enough to use as a read aloud. This could be introduced with or followed by a display of other versions of the magic brush tale from China such as Ma-Lien and His Magic Brush.

Reading Level/Interest Age

Grade 4 and up (age 9 and up).

Challenge Issues and Defense

None.

Why is it here?

I came across Patrick Atangan's interview at the For Art's Sake website and wanted to read his books.