Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (2009)
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a 2009 massachusetts book award winner book written by Grace Lin and Janet Song.
In a poor village at the foot of Fruitless Mountain, a girl named Minli spends the family's few coins on a goldfish and then sets out to change her family's fortune. Guided by a folktale her father tells at night, she goes to find the Old Man of the Moon and ask him one question. Along the way she frees a dragon who cannot fly, and meets a talking fish, a greedy magistrate, and a pair of kind orphans. Grace Lin braids classic Chinese folktales into her own, illustrating the 2009 Newbery Honor book with full-color plates. Warm, brisk, and quietly wise.
Official site
http://www.gracelin.com/content.php?page=wherethemountainmeetsthemoon
Similar books
Explore Where the Mountain Meets the Moon guides
A few thoughts on Where the Mountain Meets the Moon
Minli's folklore quest shares its spirit with Spirited Away, where another child crosses into a world of spirits and old bargains. Kubo and the Two Strings tells a similar Asian-inspired story of journey and tales within tales. Both films carry the wonder young readers find in Grace Lin's mountain and moon.
Gentle folktale-inspired quests across a magical world
Minli's search for the Old Man of the Moon is really a string of small kindnesses: freeing a flightless dragon, listening to an old man's folktale, trusting a stranger on the road. These animated films, a show, and a sprawling comic build their own quests the same way, threading real wonder and warmth through a very long journey.
Young heroes whose small quest saves the people they love
Minli sets out with nothing but a handful of coins to change her family's fortune, and Grace Lin never lets the stakes get bigger than one household's happiness. These stories keep that same scale: a young or small-statured hero whose entire quest is really just about saving the people closest to them.