Mei Li

It's probably not a good idea to go into reading a picture book thinking, "Well, how will I be offended THIS time?". Still, if you go into a book with lowered expectations, you can only be delighted when you find them to be baseless. My experiences with some of the early Caldecott winning books, like "Mei Li", have sometimes ranged from gagging horror to outright shock. Looking at "Mei Li", I wasn't hopeful. It was written originally in 1939. It takes place in China with a Chinese heroine. All signs seemed to say that this book had prime racism potential. So imagine my delight and astonishment when I discovered it to be a fair treatment of a rural Chinese family existing in the 1930s. Sure, it had some elements here and there that I would have liked to have corrected, but on the whole it's a sure-footed interesting book. One of those rare Caldecott winners you can still read to your little ones today. Mei Li is not at all pleased. Her brother San Yu is going to the New Year Fair in the city and, because she is a girl, Mei Li must stay home. Fortunately, she's a fairly enterprising little lass and by bribing her brother with her lapis-blue marble she's able to convince him to take her with him to town as well. Once there she gives some money to a begger girl and partakes of the splendors of the city. After competing with her brother to show him that girls can do just as much as boys can, she stumbles across a fortune teller. The man predicts that she will rule over a kingdom, a fate which even the normally optimistic Mei Li has some doubts about. After dressing up, playing with toys, and escaping from realistic flying kites she returns to her home with her brother and uncle. That night, she greets the Kitchen God and is told that her home is her kingdom and in it everyone is her loyal loving subject. Says Mei Li with a bit of common sense, "It will do for a while, anyway". It's an odd kind of story, really. The narrative jumps wildly from place to place to place. One minute Mei Li's being held upside down by a female acrobat and the next she's created a crown out of her green marble and is prancing about like a princess. Her brother, San Yu, is also a realistically cruel older brother. In fact, he doesn't seem to much care what or where his sister gets to. This guy sneers, mocks, jeers, and generally makes his little sister's life a misery. Pretty realistic stuff. For her part, Mei Li is the ultimate likable protagonist. There's nothing she does that other little girls wouldn't do in her place. Along with that, she never really gets particularly upset with her older brother. I was a little surprised to find that the author and illustrator of this book were one and the same. Where the plot and narrative of this book is lightheared and wild, the pictures convey that silliness but also have a wry realism about them. Everything here is drawn in black and white. This is a real pity when you consider that Mei Li goes abou