Title: The Boy Who Swallowed Snakes
Author: Laurence Yep (1948 – Present) — Newbery Honor Author & Wilder Medal Winner
Illustrators: Jean Tseng & Mou-Sien Tseng — Renowned award-winning visual artists
Genre: Children’s Folklore / Chinese Mythology & Legends / Original Literary Fairy Tales
Edition: First Scholastic Edition, First Printing (1994)
Publisher: Scholastic Inc., New York
Aesthetics: Pictorial dust jacket and yellow cloth covers; watercolor paintings depicting the bamboo forests of Southern China
"A long time ago, in southern China, forests still covered the hills. In their great, green shadow a small village huddled, and in that village lived a boy named Little Chou and his widowed mother. They were so poor that they had no land to farm."
Set within the lush, mist-shrouded forests of Southern China, The Boy Who Swallowed Snakes is a masterfully paced original folktale celebrating bravery and resourcefulness. The narrative follows a poor boy named Little Chou who finds a mysterious bamboo basket containing silver and a deadly, poisonous ku snake. To prevent the creature's malevolence from spreading, the brave boy swallows the snake, triggering a series of magical events that outwits a greedy merchant and brings prosperity.
This 1994 first edition highlights the artistic mastery of Jean and Mou-Sien Tseng, who infuse the book with profound symbolism, including a title page talisman designed to ward off evil using the five traditional poisonous animals.
Laurence Yep (1948 - ) is a native of Chinatown, San Francisco, and the award-winning author of many wonderful children's books, all of which are worth exploring. Yep authored the Golden Mountain Chronicles, the Dragon Series, the Chinatown Mysteries, City Trilogy, The Tiger's Apprentice, and the Ribbons books. Dragonwings and Dragon's Gate were Newbery Honor books; Child of the Owl, a Golden Mountain book, won the Boston Globe-Horn Book award; in 2005 he won the biennial Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for contributions to children's literature.
Jean and Mou-Sien Tseng met at university in Taiwan and immigrated to the United States in 1974. Their beautiful work includes The Khan's Daughter, The City of Dragons, The Ghost Fox, and The Seven Chinese Brothers.
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Condition*: Near Fine/Near Fine. Dust jacket: Mild shelf wear; obscured name on front pastedown. Closed tear on lower edge of page 7 else pages are clean, undamaged, and complete.
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