4) Lon Po Po By Ed Young

Bibliographic Citation:  Young, Ed. Lon Po Po. Philomel Books, 1989. 32 pages. ISBN:  978-0399216190.

Format: Hardcover

Awards:  Randolph Caldecott Medal, Boston Globe Horn Book Honor, Parents’ Choice Award, ALA Notable Book, Publisher’s Weekly Best Children’s Books of the Year.

Author/Illustrator Sites: http://edyoungart.com

Age Group: Ages 3-4 Years

Annotation:  A wolf tries to trick three children into thinking that it is their grandmother.

Reflection: Lon Po Po is the Chinese variation of the classic fairy tale, Little Red-Riding Hood.   Instead of the child going off to grandmother’s house, three children are left home alone as their mother sets out to visit their grandmother/ Po Po in Chinese.  The children are warned by their loving mother to lock the doors and “latch it well” which is a lesson in child safety and stranger danger.  Next, the wolf sees the mother leave the house and disguises himself as the children’s grandmother.  The wolf knocks on the door and tries to persuade the children to let him in.  The oldest and smartest child resists but the youngest ones excited to hear that it is their Po Po, open the door.  The crafty wolf blows the candles out and lures the children into bed claiming how tired he was from the trip.  A similar storyline follows with the oldest child exclaiming, “Po Po. Po Po, your foot has a bush on it,” ... “Po Po, Po Po, your hand has thorns on it.”  The oldest child knows that it is a wolf and uses her cleverness to trick the wolf by telling him about the tasty flesh of the gingko nut.  She then quickly takes both siblings outside to climb the gingko tree to safety.  The wolf follows and calls to the children to throw some gingko nuts down.  Again the oldest tricks the wolf into getting a basket to be pulled up the gingko tree.  All the children pull the basket as high as they can then let go of the rope and the wolf plummeted to its death.  The next day the children tell their mother the story of the wolf. The book is illustrated with ancient Chinese panel techniques and uses watercolor and pastels to   foreshadow what is to come from page to page.  As one looks closer at the illustrations, one can see that the first page is a wolf head which is the grounds of the house and gingko tree.  As the book progresses, the illustrations always include the wolf’s presence as a dark and ominous figure.  It is interesting to note in the beginning that the Chinese dedicate a page to the wolf, “To all the wolves of the world for lending their good name as a tangible symbol for our darkness.”

Categorization Tags:  Folklore, China, Juvenile Fiction, Caldecott Medal