Where the Mountain Meets the Moon status: COMPLETED

I just finished Where The Mountain Meets The Moon by Grace Lin. Oh my god, so excellent. At the end there's a most excellent author's note and even better, a list of books that helped inspire Where The Mountain Meets The Moon. I'm gonna be getting some of these. I've already got a collection of Chinese fairytales from Gutenberg, but it won't help to add more to my collection.

Plus? Physical books mean I can share them with my teensy stepbrother. He just got his first collection of fairytales this year, after we discovered he didn't know the story of The Princess and the Pea, but knew the entire storyline of Halo.

Anyway! Here's the inspirations:

Some of the books that inspired
WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE MOON
Birch, Cyril. Tales from China (Oxford Myths and Legends). New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Editorial Committee of The Overseas Chinese Library. Folk Stories Number 2002. Taipei: The Overseas Chinese Library, 1985.

Editorial Committee of The Overseas Chinese Library. Stories From Classical Allusions Number 3001. Taipei: The Overseas Chinese Library, 1985.

Editorial Committee of The Overseas Chinese Library. Stories From Mencious Number 2003. Taipei: The Overseas Chinese Library, 1985.

Fang, Linda. The Ch’i-lin Purse, A Collection of Ancient Chinese Stories. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1995.

The Frog Rider — Folk Tales from China (First Series). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1980.

Hume, Lotta Carswell. Favorite Children’s Stories from China and Tibet. Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle Publishing, 1962.

Kendall, Carol and Yao-wen Li. Sweet and Sour, Tales from China. New York: Clarion Books, 1978.

Roberts, Moss, trans. Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies. New York: Pantheon Books, 1979.

Various. Folk Tales of the West Lake. N.p.: Olympia Press, 2007.

Wang, Gia-Zhen. Auntie Tigress and Other Favorite Chinese Folktales. New York: Purple Bear Books, 2006.

Final note: While I enjoyed the whole book very much (I'm fond of Minli, and the emphasis on how much her family meant to eachother was actually really nice), the part that really stood out was the fairytales that the author would write, which is why I chose to make my final post on the subject be the bibliography. If they inspired her to create the things in her story, they've got to be a good read.

I haven't read a lot of recent books lately, but I'm glad my step back into it was Grace Lin. I'm going to be seeing what else she comes up with.

Second final note: This book made me miss my old pet goldfish, Pecan. RIP, you shiny little guy.