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.