Looking for an obscure (Chinese?) childrens book.
August 27, 2024 5:08 PM Subscribe
Hi everyone,
Sometime in the early 80s, my dad bought a couple childrens books in the Seattle area. Both were in English, and were pretty clearly translated from Chinese.
The first was a preschooler-ish book. A boy and a girl doing things like "every day we practice our numbers, every day we finish our rice, every day we say our pledge 'long live Chairman Mao'", for 10-15 pages. I'm not really interested in that one, but you can see why I'm pretty sure its Chinese.
The second one was a little more advanced, but still very short. Again, each page was illustrated with a small amount of text telling a story along these lines:
There was once a happy farm, full of animals working together. Each animal had a job that made the farm work. One day a wolf comes in, terrorizes the animals, and takes their harvest leaving the poor animals in dire conditions. So, working together, they dig a deep pit as a trap. The wolf falls in the trap, and then they drag it out of the pit with a rope tied around its neck and beat it to death with rakes and shovels. Then they were able to happily live together.
Again, this was all illustrated, theres a trickle of blood running out of the wolfs mouth, as they are dragging him out of the pit. It's not super gory, but it is kind of a bit much for a little kids book.
It wouldn't surprise me if this were based on some other tale, or something older ala Grimm's, but I can't find any leads on it.
This comes up with my brother and also my father, who both remember it, but my father has no recollection of where he got the thing. It seems to have been lost in the couple moves my mom has made over the years and it would be interesting to see it again.
Does any of this strike a bell?
The first was a preschooler-ish book. A boy and a girl doing things like "every day we practice our numbers, every day we finish our rice, every day we say our pledge 'long live Chairman Mao'", for 10-15 pages. I'm not really interested in that one, but you can see why I'm pretty sure its Chinese.
The second one was a little more advanced, but still very short. Again, each page was illustrated with a small amount of text telling a story along these lines:
There was once a happy farm, full of animals working together. Each animal had a job that made the farm work. One day a wolf comes in, terrorizes the animals, and takes their harvest leaving the poor animals in dire conditions. So, working together, they dig a deep pit as a trap. The wolf falls in the trap, and then they drag it out of the pit with a rope tied around its neck and beat it to death with rakes and shovels. Then they were able to happily live together.
Again, this was all illustrated, theres a trickle of blood running out of the wolfs mouth, as they are dragging him out of the pit. It's not super gory, but it is kind of a bit much for a little kids book.
It wouldn't surprise me if this were based on some other tale, or something older ala Grimm's, but I can't find any leads on it.
This comes up with my brother and also my father, who both remember it, but my father has no recollection of where he got the thing. It seems to have been lost in the couple moves my mom has made over the years and it would be interesting to see it again.
Does any of this strike a bell?
Neat! OK, maybe:
2) Foreign Languages Press (the state apparatus) also published comic books in English in that time frame, aimed at readers older than the Little Pals audience; so far, the book nearest to your description that I've found has humans killing the wolf with gardening implements: School-Master Dongguo, adapted and illustrated by Ma De, 1980 (Amazon link). See pages inside the book at this eBay listing; last image is: 27. "Now Master Dongguo no longer pities the wolf. He takes over the peasant's hoe and brings the final blow home."
The "traveling Mohist scholar, Mr. Dongguo," and the "Wolf of Zhongshan" (wiki) are discussed in The Wolf of Zhongshan and Ingrates: Problematic Literary Contexts in Sixteenth-Century China: No later than the first half of the sixteenth century, the story about an ungrateful wolf captured the interests and attention of Chinese writers and readers.
Adding this guess, in hopes the prolific publisher + the traditional tale (with that graphic ending) info help ID your other book.
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:54 PM on August 27 [2 favorites]
2) Foreign Languages Press (the state apparatus) also published comic books in English in that time frame, aimed at readers older than the Little Pals audience; so far, the book nearest to your description that I've found has humans killing the wolf with gardening implements: School-Master Dongguo, adapted and illustrated by Ma De, 1980 (Amazon link). See pages inside the book at this eBay listing; last image is: 27. "Now Master Dongguo no longer pities the wolf. He takes over the peasant's hoe and brings the final blow home."
The "traveling Mohist scholar, Mr. Dongguo," and the "Wolf of Zhongshan" (wiki) are discussed in The Wolf of Zhongshan and Ingrates: Problematic Literary Contexts in Sixteenth-Century China: No later than the first half of the sixteenth century, the story about an ungrateful wolf captured the interests and attention of Chinese writers and readers.
Adding this guess, in hopes the prolific publisher + the traditional tale (with that graphic ending) info help ID your other book.
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:54 PM on August 27 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Huh. That's definitely not it, but I can see some similarities. Wouldn't surprise me if the themes got errrr... remixed into something a little more communist promoting. I suspected the allegorical feeling was a bit older than the ideology it was pushing. That's definitely a great starting point, though. Thanks for checking it out! I'll make sure to update this if I can figure it out.
posted by lkc at 10:36 PM on August 27
posted by lkc at 10:36 PM on August 27
The Lamb and The Wolf, Edited by Tso Wen, Drawings by Yen Keh-fan, Foreign Language Press, 1962 edition at Etsy (first published in 1958)? [In Aesop's The Wolf and The Lamb, the tyrant wins.]
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:58 PM on August 27 [1 favorite]
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:58 PM on August 27 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: That art style is much closer to what I remember, but not that story. It was definitely closer to the wolf ones above. Wikipedia says they've put out 30k+ titles, so this is quite the needle in the haystack!
It's a shame there isn't an archive of the older stuff.
posted by lkc at 11:55 AM on August 28
It's a shame there isn't an archive of the older stuff.
posted by lkc at 11:55 AM on August 28
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[We learn the words, "Long live Chairman Mao!" is the fourth image at this expired Etsy listing (second printing, 1976).]
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:51 PM on August 27 [1 favorite]