Lon Po Po

Title: Lon Po Po

Author and Illustrator: Ed Young

Publisher and date of Publication: Penguin Putnam Books, 1996

Genre: Traditional Literature, Picture Book

Age Range: 2nd grade-5th grade

Awards: 1990 Randolph Caldecott Medal for Most Distinguished Picture Book

Summary: This is the Chinese version of Little Red Riding Hood. It's the story of 3 sisters that stay home alone while their mother goes to visit their grandmother, or Po Po. The bad wolf tries to act like their grandmother and got in the house but then one of the sisters realizes that it's not really their grandmother but a bad wolf. They finally get the wolf out of the house by telling the wolf about gingko nuts that are "so good," that grow at the top of the tree. They convince the wolf to climb up the tree to get the nuts and they would help "her." But then they keep lifting her up and dropping her and finally, on the third try, when she hit the ground the wolf died. The mother returns from visiting the grandmother and the children told their mother about what had happened.

Response: I have never read anything like Lon Po Po before but I enjoyed reading a different story from a traditional tale. Everyone has read or hear Little Red Riding Hood before but I'm sure not a lot of people have read a Chinese version of it. The illustrations remind me of China for some reason. The children look Chinese and the way the pictures are drawn, it just looks Chinese. I really enjoyed reading another version of a classic tale. I never realized how many different versions of fairy tales there is. The wolf on the front doesn't look like a traditional little red riding hood wolf but more like a wild wolf. When I first seen this book we were reading, It didn't look very interesting to me because it looked like a "wild animal" story, which I don't enjoy very much. But as I realized that it was just another version of a fairy tale, I really enjoyed it.

Teaching Ideas: I would really like to use this book in my classroom, as a first grade teacher, but I'm not sure how. Children this age really enjoy reading fairy tales and I think that children would enjoy hearing another version. Older children could compare and contrast the two versions. Children could also rewrite their version of another classic fairytale. Younger children would just enjoy hearing the story.