Tales of a Chinese Grandmother: 30 Traditional Tales from China

One can find sets of traditional Chinese tales just about anywhere. What makes this collection of largely etiologic stories particularly heartwarming is the fabric into which they are skillfully woven: an aged grandmother, matriarch of a wealthy nineteenth-century clan, offers the material to her favorite young grandson and granddaughter as they go through various practices and rituals of their daily, upper-class lives. Assuming that the physical makeup of the text hasn't changed since my 1940s copy, the four-tone images (orange and gray are predominant) are gorgeously styled, reminiscent of the outre wall and column decor of high-end 1960s "Chinese" restaurants. My copy, uniquely, is autographed by the author, Frances Scott Carpenter, and I would offer my one-of-a-kind volume for sale ($500, thank you) if I but knew how. If you're interested, contact me at [...]; the book's condition, given its age, would be suitably characterized "VG minus."

Lovely adjectives, good for bedtime reading with my daddy! After I am sent to bed, I get up and read from where me and my daddy stopped. When I finish I feel like I want to read it all over again!

Very good stories and a wonderful look into the old way in China.

I am not Chinese, however these are wonderful folk tales and present morals and metaphors that transcend culture. I highly recommend this for reading a loud to your children, especially young girls.

Twenty-four years after reading this book, its spirit still remains in me. I first read Tales of a Chinese Grandmother while in the third grade. Although I was raised in a traditional Chinese household, this book explained, with charm, the traditions and origins Chinese folklore. This is not a college compendeum of every tradition, rather it is an endearing look at Chinese culture as explained by a grandmother to two young children as they grow up in old China. <P