Episode 21: Grace’s solo show answering 2 questions about her book “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon”
Welcome to episode 21! Grace Lin answers two questions about her book, “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon".
TRANSCRIPT:
Grace Lin: Hello, I'm Grace Lin and not only am I the host of this podcast, but I am the author and illustrator of many books. Because of that, a lot of the questions that come in are specifically for me about my books. Today I thought I would do something a little different and answer some of those questions. So, instead of a guest author and I answering one question, I thought today I would answer two of the questions of all the questions I've been receiving. Today, the two questions I'll be answering will be about my middle-grade novel, Where The Mountain Meets The Moon. For those of you who don't know the book, Where The Mountain Meets The Moon is about a young girl named Minli, who goes on this grand journey to find the Old Man Of The Moon. He's the one who has the book of fortune and he can answer any question.
Grace Lin: Minli is certain that if she can find the Old Man Of The Moon, she will be able to change her family's fortune. So, she goes on this big journey and she meets all these different kinds of people, like the king who pretends he's a beggar and she also meets all these different kinds of creatures, like a dragon who can't fly. Everyone who she meets, tells her a story and those stories affect her journey, but she doesn't realize it until the very end. Here are two of the questions I've received about this book. My first question is from a person named Chloe. Chloe says-
Chloe: My favorite part in Where The mountain Meets The Moon, is when all the villagers cut pieces of their sleeves to make it coat for Minli. Where did you get that idea?
Grace Lin:
My favorite part in Where The mountain Meets The Moon, is when all the villagers cut pieces of their sleeves to make it coat from Minli. Where did you get that idea?
Grace Lin: Thank you Chloe for your question and I'm so glad that you mentioned this part of the book. This part of the book is one of my favorite parts of the book too. For those who haven't read the book, Minli goes on this great journey and she meets these people at the Village of Moon Rain. The Village of Moon Rain is in the mountains and it's very, very cold and Minli is not dressed warmly enough to be in this area and she's very cold too. But, she befriends the people in the Village of Moon Rain and when she leaves, they present her with a coat. It's a patchwork coat and it keeps her warm, but she only realizes at the very end, as she waves goodbye to all of them, she sees that all of them are waving goodbye and each one of them, their sleeves, all of their sleeves has a piece of cloth missing from it, like a big gash missing from their sleeves, because everyone in the village has cut a piece of cloth out of their own sleeve and sewn it together to make Minli this coat.
Grace Lin: Chloe wants to know, where did I get the that idea? Well, this idea came to me from a real Chinese tradition. In China, there's a real Chinese tradition, it's centuries old, where when a child has a special birthday, mother's would make a patchwork robe actually, with the fabric donated by friends and family. They would go all over to all their friends and their families and they would ask for a piece of fabric and they would patch all these pieces of fabric together to make a robe for their son or daughter. Each patch was supposed to represent a good wish or a blessing that was for the child. A robe, made with so many blessings was supposed to protect the child from any bad luck or bad spirits. These robes were considered very good fortune and they actually gave it a special name.
Grace Lin: They called it the Hundred Families Robe, with the idea that it was the blessings from a hundred families that would protect the child that wore it. People nowadays, there aren't so many Hundred Family Robes, but the tradition has still kept going. Nowadays, people tend to make quilts and the quilts tradition, they called it the Hundred Wishes Quilt, actually. You may have heard of it. I actually was given a Hundred Wish Quilt when my daughter was born. Friends and family, each donated a piece of material and my good friend made me a quilt out of all these pieces of material. All of it was to symbolize the good wishes that friends and family had for my child. So, that's where I got the idea. I just love the idea that all these pieces of material were donated with such good wishes and with good blessings.
Grace Lin: I felt like anybody who wore a coat made of all these good blessings would be able to withstand the cold. So, that's why Minli, even though she's traveling high in the mountains and is actually brutally cold, she doesn't feel it. If you read another book in the series, there's, When The Sea Turned To Silver, and this coat makes another appearance and you will notice that the person who wears the coat in When The Sea Turned To Silver, she is never really that cold. That is because this coat is magic, because it's made of all the blessings from all these families. Like I said, it's enough to keep anyone warm.
Grace Lin: All right. The second question that I was given was from a person named Jason and Jason asks-
Jason: Is the orange goldfish in Where The Mountain Meets The Moon, the orange dragon in the end of the book?
Grace Lin:
Is the goldfish in Where The Mountain Meets The Moon, the orange dragon at the end of the book?
Grace Lin: All right, so for those of you who don't know, in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, there is a goldfish, an orange goldfish that Minli buys in the very beginning of the book, and she sets this goldfish free, and she finds out later that this goldfish has traveled all over the world, except for this one river that Minli has let this goldfish free in. The reason why this goldfish has been traveling all over the world is because the goldfish is looking for the Dragon Gate. The Dragon Gate is a special gate that if a fish swims over it, the fish will turn into a dragon.
Grace Lin:
This goldfish has been searching for the Dragon Gate, so she could turn into a dragon. At the very, very end of the book, Minli sees an orange dragon, and we all wonder where this orange dragon came from. The orange dragon looks very familiar, and so Jason wants to know if the goldfish has finally become the dragon that she always wanted to be. I hate to give away the ending and I hate to say yes or no, but I imagined that that is what happened. I imagined that yes, the goldfish finally did find the Dragon Gate and turned into a dragon, and I'm always so curious about all her adventures to get to the Dragon Gate.
Grace Lin:
I've always been thinking, in the future, maybe I would write her story, the orange goldfish's story. Stay tuned for that, someday. All right, so those are the two questions, out of the many questions that I've had for Where The Mountain Meets The Moon. I'll try to answer more in the future and I'll answer some questions from my other books too. The Year Of The Dog, and Dumpling Days and Starry River of The Sky. Stay tuned for more of these episodes as well. Thanks so much. Bye.
Today’s KID JOKE comes from Hazel! It’s called “Robber Ducky”
Who stole the soap?
Who?
The robber ducky!
Thank you Hazel for that funny joke!
More about today’s author:
Grace Lin, a NY Times bestselling author/ illustrator, won the Newbery Honor for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and her picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star, was awarded the Caldecott Honor. Grace is an occasional commentator for New England Public Radio , a video essayist for PBS NewsHour (here & here), and the speaker of the popular TEDx talk, The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child’s Bookshelf. She is the co-host of the podcast Book Friends Forever, a kidlit podcast about friendship and publishing (geared for adults). Find her facebook, instagram , twitter ( @pacylin) or sign up for her author newsletter HERE.
Special thanks to the High Five Books & Art Always Bookstore, Ms. Carleton’s 2nd grade class at Jackson Street School for their help with our kid questions and reviews.
