Where The Mountain Meets The Moon by Grace Lin- Book Review
Title: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon
Author: Grace Lin
Publisher: Little Brown
Publish Date: 2009
Rating: 5/5
Summary(blurb): A Newbery Honor Book. Young Minli lives in the Valley of Fruitless Mountain, where she and her parents spend their days working hard in the fields. At night, Minli listens to her father's tales about the Old Man of the Moon, who knows the answers to everything. Minli sets out on a quest to find the Old Man of the Moon-- he will know how she can bring good fortune to 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 book review may contain spoilers**
I was first recommended this book years ago in ninth grade, when I had nothing to read and asked for recommendations from a friend. She lent me her copy of this book and I loved it, and a few weeks ago I stumbled across another copy of this book in my local secondhand bookstore. I read it once more after buying it, and was enamored by the story's simplicity and innocence once again.
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a novel based on Chinese mythology, telling the story of a young girl named Minli who seeks to change her family's poor fortunes by journeying to the Old Man of the Moon, who knows the answers to any and all questions. She is motivated by a talking goldfish as well as her father's folktale stories. She soon encounters a flightless dragon whom she befriends, then continues on her journey. Along the way many stories are told which all connect together to form the background of the narrative, and finally Minli meets the Old Man of the Moon.
I was enchanted by this book-- I used to love folktales and old stories from when I was a child, and though I was mainly exposed to Korean folktales, there were some elements of Chinese mythology I recognized from my child years. Most of the mythology in the story is a mixture of the author's imagination and true Buddhist/Chinese legends and stories, which all do seem realistic enough to be actual Chinese legends.
Most of the main characters were predictable, adhering to the general structure of Confucian values of good vs bad and filial piety, yet the story was intricate in its worldbuilding (layering stories on top of each other), and the plot felt like an innocent child's book which leaves the readers with a warm feeling. Additionally, the main character Minli's parents are not left out; the parents are shown throughout the book, worried sick about their missing daughter and telling stories of their own, eventually coming to an understanding themselves that leads them to change their ways.
Beautiful illustrations (done by Grace Lin herself) are also peppered across the pages, sprinkling life into the story and making it more of a children's book than it already is. Which is a good thing for this story, because the premise of it being a children's book further appeals to older audiences with its simplicity and innocence. It's a good old adventure story with the universal moral of gratitude, friendship, and kindness woven throughout, just like it's targeted for children, but the layering of story upon story and story within story in this book made it extremely interesting for me.
This story-within-a-story structure in the book opens a separate narrative (about Magistrate Tiger's time), and this was the best part of the book in my opinion. Various stories told by various characters (including Minli's father, a goldfish, Da-A-Fu, a dragon, a king, a stone lion, and more) help carry the plot forward by providing background information, and also piece in with the overall narrative to create a kind of background and complete the world that the story takes place in. As a young kid I loved to read, but most of all I loved the old stories and myths, whether they be Korean, Greco-Roman, or Chinese. This book has plenty of such stories that I so enjoyed as a child, and since the stories were all connected it was even better. There's the kind of Inkheart feeling in that the stories turn out to be real, but of course this book is much less dark/serious than Inkheart is.
All in all, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a beautiful book with Confucian values and motifs (that make it clear the books is for children), and the characters are one-dimensional but lovable in their own right. The plot was fairly interesting, but the intricate layering of the stories was what really enraptured me.
I would recommend this book for grade 4-5 and up, it's fairly challenging for early readers though it's targeted for that age group.
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