Collection of Chinese myths and legends for school age?

December 27, 2018 10:56 AM

Can you recommend a collection of illustrated Chinese myths and legends for school aged readers? In particular, something which includes stories about folk deities (e.g., Kuan Yin), the Monkey King and the Eight Immortals would be ideal.

I have several collections of myths and legends including the National Geographic mythology treasuries (Egyptian, Greek, Norse). I am now trying to similarly well illustrated and English-language versions of Chinese myths and legends. Ideally this would include stories about the various folk deities (e.g., Kuan Yin), the Monkey King and the Eight Immortals. Some of these stories are more common than others -- so stories of the Monkey King are fairly common, but I'm having difficulty finding a collection with similarly accessible versions of the other stories. Any ideas?

posted by apcmwh to Society & Culture (3 answers total)

The Kuan Yin stories are based on Journey to the West (i.e., the stories are better known as 'Journey to the West' (西遊記, pronounced saiyuki in Japanese) in northeast Asia than "stories about the monkey king").

Anyway, if you can find it, there may be books for children about Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
posted by JamesBay at 11:02 AM on December 27, 2018

The Pantheon series of culture/country-based mythology collections has been pretty reliable for me. They're not necessarily for kids per se, but are very readable, not like dry folklorist versions.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:46 PM on December 27, 2018

Grace Lin has written a terrific trilogy that starts with “Where The Mountains Meet the Moon.” While it’s fiction, it features retelling of many Chinese folk tales. It’s also gorgeously illustrated and has been quite popular in my school library.
posted by carterk at 3:29 PM on December 27, 2018 [1 favorite]