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Suho’s White Horse: A Mongolian Legend is the retelling of one of the legends that explains the origins of Mongolia’s national musical instrument, the morin khuur, or horse hair fiddle, which always has a carved horse’s head at the top of its pegbox.

Suho, a young Mongolian shepherd boy, rescues and rears a white foal. A few years later he is persuaded to enter a horse-race with the governor’s daughter’s hand in marriage as the prize. With his beautiful white horse, of course Suho wins the race – but when the governor finds out that Suho is a shepherd he not only goes back on his word, but has his soldiers beat Suho up and steals the horse.

Suho manages to get home and is nursed back to health. Meanwhile, the white horse escapes. Incensed, the governor orders his men to catch the white horse – and if they can’t catch it, to kill it. The white horse does manage to return to Suho but is so badly injured that it dies. Suho is heartbroken but the horse comes to him in a dream and tells him to use different parts of his body to create a musical instrument – and so the morin khuur is born.

This retelling of Suho’s White Horse by Yuzo Otsuka, and translated by Richard McNamara and Peter Howlett (RIC Publications, 2006) is great for reading aloud, with plenty of detail. Both Older Brother and Little Brother became emotionally involved in the story very quickly, reacting to the different stages with outrage, horror and sadness. Hans Christian Andersen Award winner (1980) Suekichi Akaba‘s illustrations are beautiful, conveying the vastness of the steppe as well as the story’s emotive narrative.

And a real bonus with this edition is the accompanying CD that contains a musical retelling of the legend played on the morin khuur itself by “the horse-head fiddle’s finest player” Li Bo (scroll down this page to read an interview with him). We were all captivated by the haunting music and the boys had quite a deep discussion of which bit of music referred to which bit of the story.

I’m excited to have found this recording of Suho’s White Horse on You Tube with Lai Haslo playing the morin khuur and Zhang Lin on the Chinese dulcimer. I hope you enjoy it as much as we have – listen out for the horse galloping.

Dori Jones Yang,
Daughter of Xanadu
Delacorte Press, 2011.

Ages 12+

In 13th Century Mongolia the Kubilai Khan’s granddaughter Emmajin is about to turn fifteen, marking the shift from childhood to womanhood. Emmajin, however, is not like other girls. She has no intention of getting married and does everything she can to fend off prospective suitors. Her best friend is her (male) first cousin Suren. They horse-ride and practise archery together; and as far as Emmajin is concerned, nothing is going to change after her birthday – except that she is more determined than ever to become a soldier and gain honor for her family by great deeds on the battle-field.

Before contemplating her becoming a soldier, Emmajin’s grandfather gives her the task of finding out all she can about the homeland of certain visiting foreign merchants, in order to promote the Khan’s intentions to conquer the world. So enters into her life the Venetian Marco Polo; and so begins Emmajin’s actual growing-up, as she learns from Marco that there are different ways of doing and thinking. Her task is further complicated by her increasing attraction to him, and she soon finds herself facing dilemmas of loyalty and questioning the principles of conquest that she has grown up with.

Drawing on the Journeys of Marco Polo, Dori Jones Yang has created a fast-paced book that brings the Mongol Empire to life with plenty of historical detail. The story encompasses adventure, heartbreak and divided loyalties, and the exhilaration and challenges faced by a girl determined to make it on her own terms in a man’s world. Emmajin is a feisty, outspoken character, and the candid first-person narrative, complete with quandaries and attempts at self-justification, as well as acknowledgments of failings, means that readers will come to love Emmajin, even though her original tenets, founded in a culture bent on building empire, may be alienating to today’s readers. As the book progresses and Emmajin’s at times almost arrogant certainties are challenged, readers will be increasingly drawn to her.

Emmajin and Marco Polo’s relationship colors the whole book. As readers follow them through increasingly adventurous exploits, such as dragon-hunting and battle, the book becomes harder and harder to put down. From the start, Daughter of Xanadu challenges readers to ponder both their own views and their tolerance of others’ views; and by the end, we have not only found a friend in Emmajin, but also decided we would like to know what happens next…

Marjorie Coughlan
March 2011

A couple of days ago I wrote a post about Mongolian writer and literacy advocate Dasdondog Jamba. Although at first glance his blog may seem unfathomable to those of us who don’t understand Mongolian, hooray – we are in luck! He does have one category devoted to his poems in English.

Here’s the beginning of a lovely children’s poem, evocative of the Mongolian Steppe and with a whiff of the promise of spring:

Five Colors

“Lambs, lambs, how come
you’re pure white?”
“We were born when the snow had fallen,
so we have to be pure white”

“Little goats, little goats…” Read the rest of the poem here.

Do enjoy a read of these joyous poems – and they’d make a great classroom resource too. Also, take a look at this reprint from IBBY’s Bookbird journal, With the Mobile Library Through the Seasons, in which Dashdondog charts one of his amazing journeys with the Mongolian Mobile Children’s Library.

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Liz In Ink – head on over…

Our current focus on Mongolia would be incomplete without a full mention of poet, writer and librarian extraordinaire, Dashdondog Jamba, who set up Mongolia’s Mobile Children’s Library more than twenty years ago in order to bring books to children even in the remotest parts of the country. We are delighted to be able to bring you a reprint of an article from IBBY’s Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature written by Dashdondog, “With the Mobile Library Through the Seasons“. Do head over to the main PaperTigers website and read it for some fascinating insight into the Mobile Library service, through this detailed description of one of its journeys. Originally the library was transported by oxcart or camel; now there is a van which clocks up thousands of kilometers every year. The library won the 2006 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award and features in Margriet Ruurs‘ book My Librarian is a Camel: How Books are Brought to Children Around the World.

As well as ensuring that Mongolian children have access to books from all over the world, Dashdondog Jamba (sometimes also written as Jambyn) is himself the author of more than seventy children’s books. Not many are available in English but you can get a tantalising glimpse of some of them here, at the ICDL. A collection of his retellings of Mongolian Folktales was published recently and is currently our Book of the Month. Dashdondog was instrumental in setting up the Mongolian sections of both SCBWI and IBBY.

You can read an article by Dashdondog, “Children’s Literature in Mongolia Needs Renovation” written for ACCU in 2001, and his speech to IBBY’s 30th Congress in Macau in 2006. Indian author Ramendra Kumar recounts his meeting with Dashdondog here, including an unexpected prelude – and some great photos.

Retold by Dashdondog Jamba and Borolzoi Dashdondog, edited by Anne Pellowski,
Mongolian Folktales
World Folklore Series, Libraries Unlimited, 2009.

Ages 8+

Part of Libraries Unlimited’s World Folklore Series, Mongolian Folktales is an anthology of more than sixty myths and stories which form part of the oral culture still very much treasured and handed on in Mongolia today. The book also provides a concise wealth of detail about Mongolian culture, including such areas as a brief historical outline of Mongolia, holidays and festivals, sports, food (including recipes) and folk art. There are also selections of riddles, proverbs and triads, all of whose prominent roles in Mongolian oral culture are explained under “Other Folklore”.

The stories themselves are arranged by type (Animal, Humorous, Magical etc.). Some, such as “The origin of the Mongols” or “A Fiery Red Khan”, proclaim their Mongolian origins; others, like “A Tale of Friendship” or “The Foolish Man”, remind readers of the interconnectedness of folktales. Some stories are cited as originating from Chinggis Khan: for example, “The Snake with One Head and a Thousand Tales”, which serves as a warning to his children and grandchildren about the dangers of infighting. Readers or listeners (for following in the oral tradition of the original stories, the fine translations here beg to be read aloud) will be able to interweave these tales into the fabric of stories from their own culture, finding contrasts and similarities. Most of them are very short, making them ideal for dipping into; but some, like “Dreaming Boy” about a boy whose dreams get him into trouble but whose integrity wins through, have the satisfying depth of a fairy tale.

Photographs give the stories a contemporary context – as well as a glimpse at the famous Mongolian Mobile Children’s Library, winner of the IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award in 2006 and founded by Dashdondog Jamba, one of the book’s authors. One particular photograph shows children playing “Wolf and Marmot”, a fun-sounding group game outlined in the “Games” section. Other drawings include maps and a fascinating diagram of the layout of a ger, the “round home of at least half of the Mongolian people.”

Many stories are robust in their retellings, reminding us that folklore is not just for children. Mongolian Folktales is a superbly collated book and one that no one young or old will ever grow out of.

Marjorie Coughlan
March 2011

Over the next few weeks we will be focusing particularly on Mongolia as our new theme on PaperTigers. We are delighted to begin with an interview with Dori Jones Yang, author of the recently released book, Daughter of Xanadu.

Dori Jones Yang grew up in Ohio, the daughter of a bookseller, and fell in love with foreign travel at an early age. Among other languages, she speaks fluent Mandarin and has lived in Singapore and Hong Kong, where she was foreign correspondent for Business Week.

Her first book, The Secret Voice of Gina Zhang, was a Skipping Stones Honor Book in 2001, and was also awarded the Pleasant T. Rowland Prize for Fiction for Girls. Her most recent book is Daughter of Xanadu, set in 13th century Mongolia, under the Khubilai Khan.

Dori lives near Seattle with her husband Paul Yang; they have three grown-up children.
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Your latest book, Daughter of Xanadu, is set in the thirteenth-century Mongol Empire and conveys a great deal of what life was like under Khubilai Khan. What research did you do and at what point did you find your story within it? How much did you draw on Marco Polo’s writing?

Marco Polo’s own book about his travels inspired me. He tells the tale of Ai-Jaruk, a Mongolian princess who defeated all would-be suitors in wrestling and won the right to become a warrior and live her own life. That story sparked my imagination. But the character I created, Emmajin, is an archer, not a wrestler, and she is deeper and more thoughtful.

Daughter of Xanadu’s heroine, Emmajin, is a forceful character whose views are increasingly challenged as the book progresses, mostly through her contact with Marco Polo, “the foreigner.” How difficult was it to write of Emmajin’s convictions and in particular her determination to become a soldier?

In my life, I was one of the first women students at Princeton and one of the early women business journalists, so I understand what it feels like to break into traditionally male worlds. However, I know little about the military and never aspired to be a soldier, so I had to imagine that desire. Mainly, Emmajin wanted to earn respect, so she aimed for the most highly admired profession in her society: war hero.

One of the many themes explored in the book is the gulf between the reality of war and the reshaping of those experiences into epic tales told after the event. How important did you feel it was not to shy away from giving a vivid description of the Battle of Vochan?

Marco Polo himself described the Battle of Vochan in dramatic terms, how the Mongol archers faced thousands of elephants, so I openly borrowed from him. However, I do believe that stories of battles are retold in overly glorious ways meant to encourage young soldiers to fight, and I wanted to make sure Emmajin realized that.

What do you hope today’s young readers will relate to and ponder in the story?

The main message is that it’s important to get to know foreigners. In every country, in every era, it’s easy to slip into an ‘us-vs.-them’ mentality, to look on ‘them’ as sub-human so that we can

When I first read Bolormaa Baasansuren’s My Little Round House (Groundwood, 2009) to my daughter, she was captivated.  What’s not to like, after all, about the story of a baby?  But Jilu, of course, is a special baby whose first of year of life is charted through the nomadic seasonal migrations of his Mongol parents.  Jilu is born in a ger – the “little round house” of the title of the book.  The ‘ger’ is a kind of a metaphor for the world from which Jilu emerges; it is comforting and warm like the womb, and it is the one constant in his family’s life of migration.

When my daughter and I read this book together, we got a good sense of the passage of time.   And of course, one year in the life of an infant is quite amazing!  The world of their consciousness  — from being held and suckled, to their first independent movements, to their growing perception of the world outside of themselves — is all contained in this wonderful book.  By the time one year passes, little Jilu is old enough to truly enjoy the season — summer — he was born in, outside of the ger.

Baasansuren’s illustrations are lovely and rich.  My Little Round House is a picture book of the first order and this is one of the reasons why it was selected for the Spirit of PaperTigers project.   Do read the PaperTigers interview with Baasansuren.   And of course, do seek out the book itself either at your local library or bookstore!

The Mongolian Death Worm is a mythical creature said to be able to kill by shooting sulfuric acid at the victim as well as killing by a distance with electrical discharge. The worm’s venom is strong enough to corrode metal and one touch would mean instant death. It is described to be red in color, it is 20 inches long and resembles the intestine of cattle. It has a short tail, and no visible features such as eyes, mouth, or nostrils.

Natives of Mongolia and some scientists believe it to live in the Gobi Desert while preferring to burrow and sleep in the sand. However it will come out after the rain when the soil is still soft and moist. Although food supply and living conditions make their existence unlikely.

Franki at A Year of Reading has gathered together some fantastic projects by children “to make the world a better place”, including her own daughter and her friends. These are all inspirational stories - do follow up on all her links! I do just have to mention this one though:

How about Capucine who I learned about from Stella at My World-Mi Mundo. Capucine, a four year old, is helping to make sure that her friends in Mongolia have books. She would like to open a library for them. Capucine already understands the power of her words, the Internet, and making a difference.