Maybe I am too much of a softie, but this book lost me when Li Lun moved a nest of baby seagulls and fought off their mother, so that he could plant some rice at the top of a mountain. They ended up getting killed by rats. Seemed pretty awful to me that the price of Li Lun's proving himself to his dad was to disregard other living things. I would have HATED this as a kid, and it bugged me as an adult, especially since there is an extra cuddly line drawing of the baby seagulls on the same page as the description of their being carried off by the rats.

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