From the author of many wonderful books, including Newbery Honor book Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, comes the latest from author Grace Lin. The Gate, The Girl and The Dragon is a tale woven with the strands of three storylines. One is of the ancient Chinese gods, goddesses and spirits who live in their spirit world where they are responsible for caring for people. The second is the tale of a sculptor, in our current, modern world, who has found a concrete dragon's pillow and is working at creating a special stone object from it that he hopes will reunite him with his lost family. The third strand is Jin's story, a stone lion cub, who inadvertently melds the ancient and modern world together...when the door that connects the two closes. Jin is trying desperately to return to his family, which the ancients try everything they know to reconnect the two worlds, before disaster destroys them both.
I'm not sure how clear this sounds, but it is an easy-to-follow tale, and wonderfully told. As a magnificent bonus, author Lin also illustrates this book, and I'll admit I bought my own copy of this book simply based on the beautiful artwork! It reminded me of the beauty that is The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate diCamillo. Like a book from many, many years ago, Lin's book is illustrated with gorgeous watercolor paintings, as well as the edges of the pages being decorated in red with gold dragons. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was a book I needed to own, not just borrow from the library - and I was just as excited to read it!
Each January the American Library Association chooses the best book of the previous year from all of the children's books created in the United States and awards it the John Newbery Medal. I don't pretend to know the future, but I would guess that this book will be among the finalists...and I fully expect it to win the next Newbery Award! 5 paws! Buy a copy if you can...
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