Tuesday, January 08, 2002
The Chinese Word for Horse and Other Stories
by John Lewis, illustrated by Peter Rigby
I usually don't review the children's books I read because for me, they're like junk mail -- I read them because they're lying around and happen to catch my interest, they're usually very quick to read and rarely offer much food for comment. I make an exception for this one mainly because I bought it myself at a library sale and intended to keep it even if it was rejected by the wife and kids. That rejection, of course, never happened. Anyway, about the book. If you're not familiar with Chinese characters, a number of them seem to have evolved from pictures. For example, in the Chinese character for horse you can make out the four legs, the one for man looks like someone walking, etc. (The character for righteousness is the character for "I" under the character for "lamb", but that's another story.) Anyway, Mr. Lewis has written three short tales involving some of the more obvious characters and Mr. Rigby has done up some marvelous illustrations, subtly changing the character into a more recognizable picture that still evokes the style of Chinese calligraphy. How many characters either I or my children end up learning from this book, I don't know. But I do know we've had quite a good time enjoying the tales and illustrations. As I intended, this one has gone on my shelf.
LibraryThing link
I usually don't review the children's books I read because for me, they're like junk mail -- I read them because they're lying around and happen to catch my interest, they're usually very quick to read and rarely offer much food for comment. I make an exception for this one mainly because I bought it myself at a library sale and intended to keep it even if it was rejected by the wife and kids. That rejection, of course, never happened. Anyway, about the book. If you're not familiar with Chinese characters, a number of them seem to have evolved from pictures. For example, in the Chinese character for horse you can make out the four legs, the one for man looks like someone walking, etc. (The character for righteousness is the character for "I" under the character for "lamb", but that's another story.) Anyway, Mr. Lewis has written three short tales involving some of the more obvious characters and Mr. Rigby has done up some marvelous illustrations, subtly changing the character into a more recognizable picture that still evokes the style of Chinese calligraphy. How many characters either I or my children end up learning from this book, I don't know. But I do know we've had quite a good time enjoying the tales and illustrations. As I intended, this one has gone on my shelf.
LibraryThing link
Labels: OnMyShelf
// posted by John @ 5:26 PM 
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