The Lotus Seed

The Lotus Seed
By Sherry Garland
Illustrated by Tatsuro Kiuchi
Harcourt Brace, 1993

I stumbled across this book when I was looking for picture books to make “Text-to-World” connections with my students. It was used in a lesson in Strategies that Work by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis (2nd edition).

The book is about a young girl from Vietnam who wanted to remember the emperor when he lost his throne. So, she took a seed from a lotus flower in the emperor’s gardens to remember him by. When the Vietnam War tore apart her country, she moved to America, but she took the lotus seed with her to remember her country. She kept in near her family’s alter, wrapped carefully.

Many years later her grandson found the seed, wondered what it was, and took it outside and planted it without telling anyone. The girl, now a grandmother, cried and cried over her lotus seed. Soon it bloomed into a lotus flower and they were able to share the seeds among the family members to remember their home country of Vietnam.

I loved this story. I didn’t use it for a text to world connection lesson though. I am putting it in my files for next year to use this book with Red Butterfly, which I recently reviewed here.

If you are interested in other text-to-text connection books I use together, see my list here.

Red Butterfly

Red Butterfly: How a Princess Smuggled the Secret of Silk Out of China
By Deborah Noyes
Illustrated by Sophie Blackall
Candlewick, 2007

First of all, I must say this book is stunning. The illustrations look like an intricate Chinese painting. The details are beautifully imagined and portrayed. I picked this book out because I just fell in love with the illustrations. When I got the book home, I noticed it was on my “to read” list from a few months ago. I love when that kind of serendipity happens at the library.

You can visit Sophie Blackall’s website for some samples of her work from this book.

For as beautifully as this book is illustrated, it is matched by poetic writing that also brings out the beauty of this story.

The story is about a young girl in China who loves the silkworm that feeds on the mulberry tree on her father’s land. China is known for its prized silkworms and the thread it provides. But the young girl is soon to be married off to royalty in Khotan, and she is sad because she will miss her silkworm and her beautiful land. The red butterfly is her outfit that makes her look like a butterfly when her arms are outstretched. She sneaks some silkworms, some leaves, and some seeds of a mulberry tree in her hair and carries it off to her new home.

Here is a passage by Noyes that describes the beauty of the land:

“In my father’s kingdom
there are many splendors.
As we cross the wide
countryside
to the summer palace,
sunbeams slice through dark
woods,
spilling on moss. Monkeys wail
in maple groves along the
river.
Sparrows peck mud
for their nests.”

I just wanted to read parts of this book over and over again to soak up the poetry of the story. Mixed with the illustrations, this is one of my favorite books I have read in a long time!

This story is based on a true story and the author’s note in the back explains the history behind the story.

Beautiful Saris

Mama’s Saris
By Pooja Makhijani
Illustrated by Elena Gomez
Little Brown & Co., 2007

The new book area of the children’s section of the library is where you can usually find me. I found this book, Mama’s Saris, just by browsing. I love reading books about children from Asia, so this one really caught my eye.

The main character is a seven year old girl. The book is set on her 7th birthday and her mother is going through her saris to find one to wear. The mother only wears them on special occasions, unlike the grandmother, who wears them all the time. The mother and daughter talk about each sari one by one and mother shares special memories of when she wore each one. It’s a scrapbook of special events through these beautiful pieces of clothing.

The young girl begs her mother to let her wear a sari for her birthday. Mother keeps telling her no and suggests she wear her chaniya choli, a child’s traditional outfit. The little girl wants so much to be grown up and wear her mother’s sari. Finally the mother gives in and lets her try on a sari, bangles, and a bindi.

The paintings in this book are absolutely stunning. The details in the patterns of the saris are exquisite. I think the paintings themselves draw you right into the book.

This book has also been nominated for the Cybils this year.

Links:
Just One More Book Podcast about this book.

My Mother’s Sari
By Sandya Rao
Illustrated by Nina Sabnani
NorthSouth Books, 2006

This book really caught my eye because I had already read Mama’s Saris, but I knew it wasn’t the same book I had read earlier. So I checked it out. This book was first published in India before it was published internationally.

The idea is similar to Mama’s Saris, but this text is much simpler. The young girl’s connection with the mother’s saris is very endearing. The little girl is comforted by her mother’s saris. The illustrations show her wrapped up in one, like she is hiding, dancing among several saris, and playing in them.

The illustrations have simple cut outs of the child in the story reveling amongst the textured cloth, which appears to be photographs of actual saris. The little girl in the story seems to be much younger than in Mama’s Saris. She doesn’t express a desire to wear a sari, just be comforted by her mother’s saris much like a young child would be comforted by a blanket.