I was in the second grade in Harpursville, New York. It was 1974. On her desk, our teacher had some books, set up on edge between bookends, I suppose, though I don't remember what they looked like. One of the books was large and black, a hardback maybe three quarters of an inch thick. It was huge by my standards at the time, probably coffee table book-sized. I was fascinated with the book and asked my teacher if I could read it. She said yes, so I took the book to my little desk and read it for the rest of the school year. Over and over. I kept it shoved inside the desk with all my wrinkled homework and pads and pencils. This was probably pretty hard on the book, now that I think of it. At the end of the school year, I pulled the book out, dusted it off, and gave it back to my teacher.
This was a book of fairy tales and folk tales. Chinese stories, though I didn't make the connection at the time. I'm sure I had heard of China by the time I was seven. The book had heavy, glossy pages. Each story had a full-page, rather abstract illustration that I couldn't really connect with the story, but I spent a lot of time looking at them. I can't remember the title of the book, I don't think I even noticed it. The story I remember best was one about a woman who traveled in search of her husband who'd been impressed to work on the Great Wall. It was all very mysterious to me. Why the wall? What was the deal with cotton-padded clothes? A less abstract picture would definitely have been worth a thousand words.
When I tried googling around to see if I could track down the book, I found a page of Chinese folktales. It's not the same thing as finding the book, but I'm sure these are the stories.
333 words | January 25, 2006 10:11 PM | Real true story