This book is not for babies/preschoolers as it says in the listing. It is a fable/fairy tale about good and evil that has school age children in mind. The premise is this: what if there were a place where all the bad things were called good and all the good things were called bad? Then what would happen? He sets this story in an imaginary China. Don't look for absolutely accurate representation of China - China is a the setting, but not in an historical sense.
The illustrator, Julian Jusim, has styled the detailed colorful pictures after Chinese painting, and the author mentions foot-binding of girls, but, as I say, this is really a fairy tale, where good triumphs over evil in the end.
I love Isaac Bashevis Singer's stories for children, which are often set in the shtetl (Eastern European village) of his childhood imagination or the imaginary fabled village of fools, Chelm. This story isn't quite as wonderful, but is still worth a read. I plan to child-test it on a six-year-old in my life and see how she likes it.
The illustrator, Julian Jusim, has styled the detailed colorful pictures after Chinese painting, and the author mentions foot-binding of girls, but, as I say, this is really a fairy tale, where good triumphs over evil in the end.
I love Isaac Bashevis Singer's stories for children, which are often set in the shtetl (Eastern European village) of his childhood imagination or the imaginary fabled village of fools, Chelm. This story isn't quite as wonderful, but is still worth a read. I plan to child-test it on a six-year-old in my life and see how she likes it.
