Where+the+Mountain+Meets+the+Moon

Shelby Ford __**Biographical Data:**__ []
 * **Reading level:** Ages 8 and up
 * **Paperback:** 304 pages
 * **Publisher:** Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Reprint edition (April 12, 2011)
 * **Language:** English
 * **ISBN-13:** 978-031603863

__**Summary:**__ Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a story of a young girl named Minli who lives in village called Village of Fruitless Mountain as the mountain next to the village is dark and barren. The village is filled with dirt and the people spend every day working very hard in their fields for just enough rice to eat. Minli lives with her parents Ma and Ba. Ba loves to tell stories about Jade dragon and why the mountain is fruitless, who the Old Man of Moon is, and about a mean magistrate also known as Magistrate Tiger from a hundred years ago. Minli loves listening to these stories but Ma thinks they are ridiculous since they cannot bring them any fortune. A man with goldfish cart comes by the village claiming his goldfish will bring fortune. Minli buys one but her parents feel she was irrational for buying a goldfish when they cannot afford to feed it. At night Minli sets the goldfish free into Jade River and the goldfish begins to talk to her. Minli tells the goldfish she wants fortune for her village and the goldfish gives her directions to find the Old Man of the Moon who lives on top of Never-Ending Mountain because he knows everything. Minli decided to visit him in hopes to ask how she can bring fortune to her village. She sneaks away before her parents can find out she is gone. On her way to Never-Ending Mountain, Minli meets a dragon who has been tied up by monkeys because they would not let the dragon pass through their forest full of peach trees. Minli helps the dragon by cutting up the rope that entangles him as he tells his story. He was originally a painting that was given to the magistrate known as Magistrate Tiger. His painter did not give him eyes but Magistrate Tiger noticed and painted two black dots for where the eyes were to be. Suddenly the dragon became alive and came out of the painting. He has been wandering around ever since because he cannot fly and he does not know why. Minli decided that when she meets the Old Man of the Moon, she will ask him why Dragon cannot fly. Together they travel towards Never-Ending Mountain as new friends. When Ma and Ba find out that Minli is missing after reading the note she left, they begin to search for her on her own. Ma is angry at Ba because of all the stories he told Minli and that she believed them all to be true which is why she left. While out looking for Minli, Ma and Ba run into the goldfish man. He tells them the story about how he was destined to die on his 19th birthday but then he visited the Old Man of the Moon who changed his destiny where he would die at age 99. He tells them that what Minli is trying to do is not impossible and that she will come back.He gives them a goldfish in case Minli does not bring fortune when she returns. Ma and Ba decide to go back to their home and wait for Minli to return. Minli and Dragon reach The City of Bright Moonlight. Her goldfish told her to meet the the guardian of the city and ask to the "borrowed line". She assumes the guardian is the king of the city and sets forth to find him. Dragon stays behind at the city gates. Minli meets a boy with a water buffalo as a pet. He tells her how to get to the where the king lives but says that only once a month are the people of the allowed to enter the palace and that time has passed. She finds that she in fact cannot get in and goes to the home of the buffalo boy who lives alone. He tells her of a girl who is his friend who comes to visit once a month and that she may know how Minli can meet the king. The friend tells buffalo boy that the king will be at the Market of Green Abundance the next day. Minli is uncertain as to how this girl can know where the king will be since she is not from the city. The next day Minli enters the market searching for the king but finds a poor man begging a peach seller to spare a peach for him. The peach seller refuses so Minli buys a peach and gives it to the poor beggar man. The poor man than takes a stick the turns into a peach tree and everyone is rushing to get peaches, even the peach seller. Minli notices that every time a peach grows onto the magical tree, a peach disappears from the peach seller's cart. The peach seller then notices this and starts chasing the poor man. Minli spots a yellow dragon bracelet on the poor man that signifies royalty and she realizes that he in fact is the king. She runs after him as well and follows him into the palace garden. She tells him her story and he shows her what he thinks to be the "borrowed line" she is referring to. It is a piece of paper handed down to each king of the city that was suppose to hold the reason why an old family was always happy. The line on the paper changes so sometimes it reads one thing but then another. He gives the paper to Minli. While Minli is inside the city, Dragon meets a lion family made of stone that are the guardians of the city. The stone lions begin talking to Dragon telling him that years ago when Magistrate Tiger was the father of the king, their city was crumbling. The Old Man of the Moon visited the city and the lions asked him for help to save it. He gave them a red piece of thread that he uses to tie people together through marriage and through meeting. He told the lions to hold on to it till the right person comes along. Dragon thinks this is "borrowed line" and the lions give it to him. When Dragon and Minli meet up the show each other their "borrowed lines" and decide to hold on to both. As Minli and Dragon continue to walk, they reach a cave where they will spend the night. Minli hears something outside the cave and it was a huge green tiger. Dragon saves Minli from being eaten but is scratched badly from the tiger. Throughout the night, Dragon becomes weak and sick from the tiger scratch. Minli leaves Dragon in order to get help but finds a little girl talking to the green tiger and a little boy hiding and watching. She hides watches the girl and the tiger with the boy. The little girl tells the tiger how as the boy and girl were on their way to be sacrificed to the tiger like he demanded, the boy was snatched by the tiger's son. The girl shows the tiger a well and inside the well the tiger sees his reflection which he mistakes as his son. He grows very angry at his son and falls inside the well. The boy and girl are happy they defeated the green tiger. Their grandfather comes running for he thought they were dead. Minli then shows them where Dragon is and the grandfather orders the three children to go home and have their grandmother make medicine to bring back to the dragon. Soon Dragon is better and Minli learns that this medicine is a tea from the leaves of flower trees near their home. Minli tells them all her story and the boy and girl tell her that they know how to get to Never-Ending Mountain. They walk with Minli and Dragon to the mountain and leave them. The mountain is very large and appears to be never-ending. Minli decides to make a kite as a signal to the Old Man of the Moon that she is there. She makes a kite from the the paper and red string thought to be the "borrowed lines". The string then seems to grow longer and longer and soon becomes a bridge. Dragon cannot walk on the bridge so he stays down at the end and Minli promises to asks the Old Man of the Moon why Dragon cannot fly along with how to to bring fortune to her village. When Minli finally reaches the other end of the bridge and meets the Old Man of the Moon, he tells her that he will only answer one question. Minli is torn as to which question she should ask but then realizes she knew what to ask, she says, "There is a dragon waiting at the bridge, why can he not fly?" Once Minli has her answer, she goes back down the bridge to tell Dragon. She took off a small stone that was on the top of Dragon's head and said that the Old Man of the Moon said it was weighing him down. Suddenly Dragon felt lighter and was able to fly. He was sad that Minli was not able to ask her question but she was not. She was happy with the question she asked. So Dragon then flew Minli home where she snuck inside her bed. Dragon stayed at the Jade river near Minli's home because he said he felt strangely at home there. In the morning Ma and Ba were so happy to see Minli home again and went outside to see that the Fruitless Mountain was now fruitful as well as all the land. Someone said that the Jade dragon herself as part of the mountain was reunited with one of her children. Legend has it that Jade's three children transformed themselves into the three rivers near the village and Jade was so upset she became part of the mountain. Villagers said that Fruitless mountain and the village would be gray and muddy until Jade was reunited with one of her children. Minli realizes that Dragon must have been a form of one of Jade's children.

__**Author Biography:**__ Grace Lin was born in upstate New York and became an artist. She attended Rhode Island School of Design where she fell in love with children's books. In 1999, her first book titled The Ugly Vegetables was published. She then went on to publish more books with her well known books being Year of the Dog and Year of the Rat.She has traveled to Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan which have all influenced her stories and drawings. Her books have won many awards such as the Theodore Geisel Award, a Newbury Honor, Literary Lights for Children Award, and nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. Grace lives in MA with her husband. []

__**Book Review:**__ Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is such a fantastic story. The illustrations that go along with story help bring a sense of wholeness to the story. Grace Lin was able to put small stories within the larger story without making it confusing to follow each. Her ability to go from Minli's point of view to her parent's point of view helps the reader see the affect Minli's journey to the Never-Ending Mountain had on her parents and how she is constantly thinking of and missing her parents but knows she must accomplish her goal in order to bring happiness and fortune to them. This is a wonderful story of courage, happiness, and belief. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon can be used in the classroom to teach students about modern fantasy as this is what Grace Lin describes her book to be about, and plot since there is one main plot and various subplots throughout the story.

__**Literary Element: Writing Style:**__ Where the Mountain Meets the Moon can be used to discusses writing style in reference to the various stories within the main story. Ba along with other characters Minli meets on her journey all have a story to tell. These stories include, "The Story of Fruitless Mountain", "The Story of the Old Man of the Moon", "The Story of the Dragon", "The Story of the Goldfish Man", "The Story of the Paper of Happiness", "The Story of the Dragon Gate", "The Story of the Buffalo Boy's Friend", "The Unknown Part of the Story of the Old Man of the Moon", "A String of Destiny", "The Story the Girl Told the Green Tiger", "The Story of the Village of Moon Rain", "The Story of the Green Tiger and the Tea", "The Story of Da-A-Fu's Ancestors", "The Story of the Dragon's Pearl", "The Story of Wu Kang", and"The Story that Ma Told". Grace Lin's writing of all of these stories add touches to the main story. The main story would not be what it is without each one of these smaller stories since they all build on each other and make sense at the end. The writing of each story is either in narrative or first person point of view when being told. If the book was just written with simply the mail story, it would not make sense because it needs the added affect of the smaller stories.