“Another impossible dream,” Ma said, looking at the plain rice in her bowl with bitterness.
Minli’s family were living in tough times and her parents Ma and Ba had different ideas about things. Ba, her father told Minli stories, which filled her imagination with tales of wonder and adventure. One night he told her about the Old Man of the Moon, who knows the answers to everything. The family live in the Valley of Fruitless Mountain, where they have to work so hard in the fields.
Minli decides to set out one day on a quest to find the Old Man of the Moon, she wants to seek good fortune for her family. Along the way, she meets many magical friends, including a talking fish, a powerful king and a dragon who can’t fly.
This is a powerful story of ambition, love and adventure with a family who desperately love their daughter but who just can’t move away from their life of hardship.
It is also a story about life in ancient China with many parallel characters and traits, alongside a modern approach shown through the writing style and books’ format.
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a beautiful book to read and to lose yourself in its pages. The illustrations and chapter headings provide a wonderful aid to the developing story, enabling readers to glance ahead and see how the story is developing. It was awarded the 2010 Newbery Honour, chosen for Al Roker’s Today Show Kid’s Book Club and was a NY Times Bestseller.
Grace Lin is an award-winning author, living in USA, her parents were originally from Taiwan. Grace has written many award winning books and she has a picture book series, Ling and Ting plus books for early readers and novels for older children. In 2019, Grace’s picture book “A Big Mooncake For Little Star” was awarded a Caldecott Honour. Grace, herself, was recognized as a Champion of Change for Asian American and Pacific Islander Art and Storytelling.
Little, Brown are the publishers with enormously successful and intriguing books for children. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a fantastic part of that book list.
I read this book now over a month ago and have found I can’t add it to the bookshelf as I just love to keep opening the book and re reading different sections.
Books Go Walkabout have added Where the Mountain Meets the Moon to its list on dragons on Bookshop.org and it has been an amazing success with our schools.
Sue Martin
