Blia Xiong came to the United States in 1976, fleeing war torn Laos. She settled in Seattle, and in 1976, she formed a Hmong association to preserve the traditional music, dance, crafts, and stories of her homeland.
Cathy Spagnoli, a professional storyteller in Seattle, started to collect stories from Southeast Asian refugees in 1983 as a way to build cross-cultural bridges. She met Blia Xiong at that time, and they have since worked together on various Hmong tales.
Nancy Hom is a fine artist, printmaker, and graphic designer who is based in San Francisco, California. Her medium for this book was based on traditional Hmong story cloths, which is a technique of colorful multi-imaged embroidery.
This imaginative folktale provides a rare window into the lore of
the Hmong people of Laos, yet is anything but parochial or arcane
in its appeal. It embraces a range of universal qualities, from
loneliness to joyful anticipation to deviousness and guile, and
portrays its characters with sympathy and wit. Hom's strikingly
colorful paintings, modeled on the appliqued "story cloths" of the
Hmong, ably capture a sense of character and landscape and extend
the fable's whimsy and good humor. -- Publishers Weekly "Done with
such harmonious simplicity that it deserves special attention for
its amusing tale and beautiful illustrations." -- International
Examiner "The colors are bright, unusual, and strikingly
harmonious. A lovely, authentic book from a culture that is
virtually unrepresented in children's literature." -- Kirkus
Reviews "Clearly this is a superior production and an important
addition to folk literature for children." -- School Library
JournalALSC Notable Children's Books - American Library Association
(ALA)
Approved Book - Parents' Choice Foundation
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