Tales of a Chinese Grandmother

By Frances Carpenter

Book Overview

This illustrated multicultural children's book presents classic Chinese fairy tales and other folk stories--providing a delightful look into a rich literary culture. Chinese folklore tradition is as colorful and captivating as any in the world, but the stories themselves still are not as well-known to Western readers as those from The Brothers Grimm, Mother Goose, or Hans Christian Andersen. Tales of a Chinese Grandmother , written by Frances Carpenter, presents a collection of 30 authentic Chinese folktales. These classic stories represent the best of the Chinese folk tradition and are told here by the character Lao Lao, the beloved grandmother of the nineteenth-century Ling household. A sampling from a long and proud tradition, these Chinese folktales are sure to delight adults as well as children of all ages. Chinese children's stories include: How Pan Ku Made the World The God that Lived in the Kitchen The Daughter of the Dragon King The Grateful Fox Fairy The King of the Monkeys The Wonderful Pear Tree Ko-Ai's Lost Shoe Heng O, the Moon Lady The Old Old One's Birthday

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0804834091
• ISBN13: 9780804834094
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.1" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

absorbing collection, well structured

One can find sets of traditional Chinese tales just about anywhere. What makes this collection of largely etiologic stories particularly heartwarming is the fabric into which they are skillfully woven: an aged grandmother, matriarch of a wealthy nineteenth-century clan, offers the material to her favorite young grandson and granddaughter as they go through various practices and rituals of their daily, upper-class lives. Assuming that the physical makeup of the text hasn't changed since my 1940s copy, the four-tone images (orange and gray are predominant) are gorgeously styled, reminiscent of the outre wall and column decor of high-end 1960s "Chinese" restaurants. My copy, uniquely, is autographed by the author, Frances Scott Carpenter, and I would offer my one-of-a-kind volume for sale ($500, thank you) if I but knew how. If you're interested, contact me at [...]; the book's condition, given its age, would be suitably characterized "VG minus."

Best Chinese Book Yet !!

Lovely adjectives, good for bedtime reading with my daddy! After I am sent to bed, I get up and read from where me and my daddy stopped. When I finish I feel like I want to read it all over again!

Tales of a Chinese Grandmother

Very good stories and a wonderful look into the old way in China.

40 years later I still remember my mother reading this to me

I am not Chinese, however these are wonderful folk tales and present morals and metaphors that transcend culture. I highly recommend this for reading a loud to your children, especially young girls.

Better reading than a bag full of fortune cookies!

Twenty-four years after reading this book, its spirit still remains in me. I first read Tales of a Chinese Grandmother while in the third grade. Although I was raised in a traditional Chinese household, this book explained, with charm, the traditions and origins Chinese folklore. This is not a college compendeum of every tradition, rather it is an endearing look at Chinese culture as explained by a grandmother to two young children as they grow up in old China. <P