Newbery Award: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon By Grace Lin

This Newbery Award winning book is a tale of fantasy, culture and most simply, a tale of faith all wrapped into one.  I must admit, I was a little uninterested in the book upon first appearances.  I'm not a huge fan of fantasy type literature, however, with an open mind I began my journey.  I was quickly amazed at how encaptured I was by both its literacy characteristics as well as the woven tale where myth and reality meet.  The story intertwines the culture and mythology from the Chinese culture with the practicality of life that many endure, the struggle for prosperity and good fortune.

Without going into vast detail, the story centers around Minli, a young girl growing up in a poor village, where her parents and her endure the daily struggle to work and provide a meager existence for herself and her family.  Her father instills hope in her through the telling of Chinese legends.  These legends are told throughout the book and provide clues to unraveling the mystery that elude Minli and her parents the most - the secret to happiness.  The search for answers to her questions of happiness lead Minli on a journey across her land, where she encounters new friends that slowly help her to unraveling the mystery.  The tale was reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy has to travel to an unknown load, encounter good, bad and everything in between to realize that what she desired most was something she had all along.  Minli too had to travel to find that happiness isn't defined by what a person owns or how much money they have, but rather the love and friendship from those around you.

Another theme of this book is the connection that all people have to each other, to nature, to the world in general.  The concept that we are all connected and intertwined by destiny, yet it is our actions that help to shape that destiny is a central concept of this book. For Minli, she searches for the Old Man of the Moon, the one who ties people together and writes their destinies.  However, through her journey, she realizes that the Old Man of the Moon, like that of life, has a plan far greater than what Minli can understand.  It is not until the end that she realizes her path of searching, was her destiny and it was through her compassion and friendship with the friends and characters along the way, that she fulfilled her destiny and brought prosperity to her village.