Beautiful (2000)

This is the story of a young woman, Mona, who wants to become a beauty pageant queen of a national competition. She has worked all her life to achieve this goal, and has struggled her way into the position of Miss Illinois. The problem is that Mona has a seven-year old daughter, and beauty pageant contestants are not allowed to have children. For the first seven years of her daughter's life, she has been raised by Mona's friend Ruby and thought that Ruby was her real mother. An unfortunate incident sends Ruby to prison however and Vanessa, the daughter, has to stay with Mona, and just when the national beauty pageant. Mona decides to ask Vanessa to come with her to the beauty pageant, partly because she didn't have anywhere to leave her and partly because Mona was feeling insecure and alone and wanted someone to be there to support her. **Spoilers** Throughout the competition she keeps looking toward Vanessa, who came to sit in her family box. If she wins the competition Vanessa will have to live with a foster family while she tours the country. She makes it to the final three in the competition, but just before her one on one interview with the host, she asked the Texan contestant if she would rather be a fake role model to thousands of girls or to be a real one to one girl. when it is her turn with the host he asks her what she likes about herself. She is stunned into silence for a second and responds that she doesn't like herself, but she will. She then announces that Vanessa is her daughter and walks off stage to get her. The viewers then have an emotional response to the statement she was making about beauty queens not being allowed to have children and ends up winning the pageant **Spoilers end**

To be quite honest I don't know why I like this movie. I am not a pageant person, I'm actually more likely to say something negative about how pageants are more like meat markets that patronize women as sexy bodies with vacant but pleasant minds that will showcase some cheap talent to show you they're worth your while. I'm not the person to brag to about how many pageants you've been in, lets leave it at that, but I still like this movie. Mona is really self conscious and unsure of herself, and at the same time is working so hard to succeed in something she feels will make her happy. I can relate to that struggle. Many times I try so hard to find something that makes me feel fulfilled, when instead I end up seeing that I should have just been thankful for what I had. To be thankful for my family and the people in my life.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon By: Grace Lin

This is the story of a poor young girl named Minli. She lived with her parents in a village near Fruitless Mountain, named so for the fact that it was barren due to the anger and pain of a dragon. Every day Minli and her parents worked hard in the rice fields to make just enough rice to feed themselves, and every night Minli would sit with her parents. Her mother would sigh in anger at their misfortune and her father told her folktales about dragons, evil magistrates, and the Old Man of the Moon (an immortal who read from the book of destiny).

One day a goldfish peddler passed through the town selling his wares, saying that a goldfish would increase the buyer's fortune. Hearing this, Minli  took one of the two copper coins to her name and bought a fish. Her mother is furious with her and tells her there that there is barely enough rice for the three of them and that they would never be able to feed another mouth. The night following this conversation, Minli decided that her mother is right and released the goldfish. As soon as she did so however, the goldfish thanked her! She was startled to find the goldfish talking to her, but was told that all goldfish talk, but only those who want to listen can hear. The goldfish then tells Minli how she can find her way to Never Ending Mountain, home of the Old Man of the Moon, so that she could try to change her fortune. This sets Minli off on a journey to try to change her family's fortune. She meets various characters, dragons, goldfish, places, people, all of which she heard of in folk tales and fairy tales.

When I first began reading this book I didn't understand why it had won the Newbery Award. The story seemed pretty typical, kid goes on an adventure, meets some people, learns a lesson, that old thing. But as I read on I found the story to be more than that. All of the folk tales, even the plot itself were taken right out of a Chinese folktale, and all were seamlessly interwoven. If a folk tale was told early on in the story, Minli would interact with the people in that folk tale later on in the plot. So often fantasy and make-believe and imagination is passed off as a foolish waste of time with no practical application in the real world. This story reminds us that folk tales do come from somewhere, that there are lessons we can learn from them that we can apply to our own lives, and most importantly, we can see how stories give Minli and her family hope and happiness.