Lao Lao of Dragon Mountain

by Margaret Bateson Hill and Margaret Bateson-Hill

Book Overview

A greedy emperor demands an impossible task from Lao Lao, a peasant woman who makes beautiful shapes from paper. The full story in Chinese and instructions for making traditional Chinese paper-cuts... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1899883649
• ISBN13: 9781899883646
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: de Agostini Editions
• Length: 1 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.9" x 11.8"
• Age Range: 6 to 9 years
• Grade Range: Grades 1 to 4

Customer Reviews

A Chinese Papercutting story and patterns to make your very own!

This book has text that is done in English and Chinese. The story weaves together many themes from traditional Chinese folk tales. The story is about a little old woman named Lao Lao. She never had any children of her own but she was never lonely because the children of the village would come and visit her. She would take thin sheets of paper and a small pair of scissors and she would sing and cut making animals and flowers. The Emperor heard and saw one of Lao Lao's paper cuts and gathered men to go get her and bring her to him. The soldiers came and took Lao Lao at night and took her against her will to the Emperor. Lao Lao was taken to a small room at the very top of the tower which only had one small window and a chest filled with paper, a candle and a sharp pair of scissor. The Emperor commanded Lao Lao to fill the chest with her paper cuts. She began to cry and began her work. The Ice Dragon had seen everything that had gone on that night as he always did. But tonight was different, something was wrong. The dragon circled the tower that Lao Lao was in and in an icy breath he froze the guards and Emperor and then took Lao Lao on his back and took her high up into the sky. Lao Lao's paper cuts swirled around in the night sky and became snowflakes. She still rides the Ice dragon and she sits with papers and sings. In the Spring she covers the trees in pink blossoms, in the Summer fields are filled with flowers and apples and nuts where her fall harvests. But her favorite is the snowflakes. The illustrations are beautiful but are not paper cutting illustrations. The last 2 pages of the book tells the reader about paper cutting and gives you instructions how to make a butterfly, flower and snowflake. There is more information on Chinese writing showing some modern character and also the old character. On last page and the back inside of the back page shows a illustration of a Lung Dragon (a long and wavy snake like dragon) that you trace and then cut inside the dragon first and the outside of the dragon last. Read this book before you read this to your child. You know how your child will react to the story and the freezing of the "bad guys".

A wonderfully moving story,beautifully told.

Chinese paper cutting weaved into a moving story about greed and punishment. Very gentle and moving. Beautiful paper cutting pictures and instruction.