A tasty, original story. This striking picture book ends with a new beginning for three people who never expected to be friends – an orphaned girl cast out by her siblings, a slave escaping from a mighty emperor’s ship, and a hunchbacked old woman known for the bitter-melon and shrimp dumplings she brings to market each day – and for living in a haunted house at the edge of the marshes. As their hardship-filled paths cross, each of their lives begins to change for the better, in a moving affirmation of the power of compassion. Set long ago in a Chinese village by the sea, Jeanne M. Lee’s meticulously illustrated story has an extraordinary flavor all its own.

Related: China, Folklore and Fairy Tales, Intermediate (ages 9-14)

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• ISBN: 9780374399665
• Author: Lee, Jeanne M
• Illustrator: Lee, Jeanne M.
• Published: 2002, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
• Themes: Book, Disability, Emperor, Friendship
• Descriptors: China, Folklore and Fairy Tales, Intermediate (ages 9-14)
• No. of pages: 32