The Paper Dragon - Hardcover

Davol, Marguerite W.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689319924 ISBN 13: 9780689319921

Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1997

Synopsis

Mi Fei is a humble painter of scrolls. Between each day's sunrise and sunset, he paints scenes of the gods and their festivals' portraits of heroes and their deeds. Although the scrolls bring him fame, Mi Fei is content to live in his village, surrounded by people he loves.
But one day a messenger enters the village with terrible news: the dragon Sui Jen has awakened from its hundred years' sleep and is destroying everything in its path. Someone must find a way to return Sui Jen to its slumber. To the villagers, only one among them is wise enough to confront the scaly beast -- Mi Fei.
The power of the artist's vision and the ever-sustaining nature of love are brought together in Marguerite W. Davol's beautiful story, strikingly interpreted by Robert Sabuda in a series of gatefold illustrations that convey the storytelling majesty of the Chinese narrative scrollmaker's art.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Sabuda is one of the most innovative and inventive children's book creators and is known worldwide for his amazing pop-up paper engineering. His books include Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Twelve Days of Christmas, The Night Before Christmas, The Winter's Tale, Peter Pan, Beauty and the Beast, to name but afew, have garnered numerous awards and have made the New York Times bestseller lists on many occasions. He lives in New York City.

From School Library Journal

Grade 1-4. A teller of felicitous tall tales from America's heartland sets this fantasy in China. When a fire-breathing dragon threatens to destroy their rice fields, the villagers turn to their humble but famous artist, Mi Fei. They reckon that his years of painting great heroes might inspire him to defeat the villain. Terrified but determined, he confronts the beast and saves the village. The story has such a sweet conclusion?love conquers all?that it seems churlish to point out that Chinese dragons are creatures of mist and rain, and that humble peasants would never wear silk. The artist-hero's pigtail places him in the recent Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), a historical era when a dragon's presence would be as unexpected in China as in the countryside of Georgian England. Such quibbles may be beside the point, for the story is overshadowed by the book's lavish design. The text is printed on a flap that opens into a triple-page spread, a long rectangular shape reminiscent of Chinese scrolls. This makes the book awkward for reading aloud in groups, and vulnerable to tearing by energetic youngsters. The art, cut from painted tissue paper and laid over textured, ivory-colored handmade Japanese paper, is arresting but hard to read. In spite of the vibrant colors and elegant composition, the overall effect is more ostentatious than emotionally resonant. While the pictures evoke Chinese paper cuts, the protaganist is shown painting one of the lines?mixing two important but quite different techniques. The book's striking appearance will command attention, but for all its generalized celebration of love, it remains chilly and disappointing.?Margaret A. Chang, North Adams State College, MA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0689319924
• ISBN 13: 9780689319921
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 60
• Illustrator: Sabuda Robert