Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

 Book by Grace Lin.

I absolutely loved this fantasy interwoven with aspects of chinese fairy tales! There were themes of family, sacrifice, faith, gratitude, selflessness, and contentment. It would be a magical read-aloud for children ages 6-11.


Also highly recommended is the sequel: When the Sky Turned to Silver.

A fantastical sequel that interweaves traditional Chinese folklore into a brand new story. Perhaps not quite as strong thematically as the first book, it is nevertheless a beautiful story sparkling with imagination.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking

 Book by T. Kingfisher This was a delightful surprise! A fantasy, murder mystery, political intrigue, war strategy, humorous tale that was thoroughly entertaining without resorting to sex, profanity, or virtue-signaling. This would work as a family road trip listen, as ages 9-adult would be entertained.
Read more

The Anxious Generation

 Nonfiction book by Jonathan Haidt. This is a book I recommend to EVERYONE! The author’s thesis is straightforward: we are overprotecting kids in the real world while simultaneously underprotecting them in the virtual world; this combination is causing the current mental health crisis among youth. The author gives an abundance of scientific research, statistics, and anecdotal evidence to support his claims. (The last third of the book is all footnotes!) I do not recommend this as an audiobook because there are so many charts and graphs referred to that you will want to see.
Read more

Holy Week: An Emotions Primer

 Board book by Danielle Hitchen. This was a really interesting idea for a board book. Each spread is a simple scene from Holy Week that depicts someone experiencing an emotion (ie. excited-triumphal entry, angry-cleansing the temple, loved-washing disciples feet, thankful-prayer during last supper, overwhelmed-Gethsemane, frustrated-Pilate, scared-soldiers, sad-death and burial, surprised-women at the tomb, and joyful-apostles with Jesus). There is also a simple description/scripture verse about the scene. So you can discuss emotions with very young children and have them pantomime what that emotion looks like or talk about what it feels like. You can talk about the various stories in simple terms and build familiarity with those stories. Parents could tell the stories in greater detail or read the full scriptural accounts as children get older. Note: the book I ordered from Amazon arrived very warped in shape and I suspect it was a manufacturing error, so there was likely a large ...
Read more