Author: Grace Lin
Lexile measure: 810
Language: No swear words, no potty language.
Violence: the main character has a fit of anger in which he injures himself (accidentally) and also damages property (accidentally and intentionally)
Big Kid Mature Topics: poverty, running away from home because of not feeling loved by parent/verbally abusive parent, takes place in China so there is some cross cultural stuff, gods/goddesses (not actually named as such, but the characters are presented as mythic and having godlike qualities and are actually worshipped as gods/goddesses in China), "noxious" animals, references to being "cursed" (no curse words or curses actually pronounced), kidnapping, deception
Illustrations: monocolor papercut like drawings at the beginning of each chapter and sparse full color illustrations
Plot: very complex, kind of like Chronicles of Narnia, not like War and Peace, with interweaving plots. Also, you will appreciate it much more if you read Where the Mountain Meets the Moon first.
This book is a little more dark than its predecessor. I chose not to let DD read it by herself, but we read it together so that I could explain the many scary elements. Please remember that for young children, the loss of a parent or being separated from parents is one of the most scary things they can encounter! Like Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, it is a high interest story and well written. It can be appreciated on a few levels. I don't think you can expect a young child to really follow the interweaving plots, but the different stories found in almost every chapter are also great on their own as a series of folktales (or folktale like stories). I had to explain a lot to my daughter, so I'm thinking that the combination of the complexity and the dark elements might make this book not the greatest for independent reading, but it was fine for parent guided read aloud time. This would be worth revisiting in 4th grade or above as an independent reader.
No comments:
Post a Comment