Following our library’s recent refurbishment, I was excited to find several bilingual picture-books in the newly-revamped children’s section… I borrowed two and we will definitely be going back for more!
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Yeh-Hsien: A Chinese Cinderella, retold by Dawn Casey and illustrated by Richard Holland, with a French translation by Annie Arnold (Mantra Lingua, 2006) is familiar but different – there’s no fairy godmother, instead Yeh-Hsien befriends a fish: “she nourished her fish with food and with love, and soon he grew to enormous size.” However, the wicked stepmother kills the fish, cooks it and eats it (this detail gives the story the frisson of horror that is sometimes missing from modern fairy-tale retellings…). The magic fish bones that are left allow Yeh-Hsien to make wishes come true – soon she has enough to eat; and then she is able to conjure up beautiful clothes to go to the Spring Festival… It’s great to have a feisty Cinderella, who has to think and do for herself – and who runs away from the party because her nightmarish step-mother frightens her, not because she forgot the time…
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Grandma’s Saturday Soup by Sally Fraser and illustrated by Derek Brazell with a Cantonese translation by Sylvia Denham (Mantra Lingua, 2005) is a delightful book – Mimi takes young readers/listeners through her week during a British winter. Everything reminds her of some ingredient in the soup she will be having at Grandma’s house on Saturday (clouds like dumplings, shoots of new growth through the snow like spring onions); and everything also contrasts with the stories Grandma tells of life in Jamaica –
“The sun shines every day. The sun is warm on your skin and you only need to wear your shorts and a T-shirt.”
Warm every day? Shorts and a T-shirt? I can’t believe that!
And the illustrations bring it alive too, alternating chilly winter scenes with glorious, tropical weather; playing in the snow with playing in the sand. This is a lovely book about a child learning about her cultural heritage from a beloved grandmother.
Mantra Lingua offer a wide range of bilingual picture-books in over 40 languages. I love the cultural mix they can create – and I would suggest that bilingual books aren’t just for those who are growing up with both the featured languages. It doesn’t matter in our family, for example, that we are only really reading the English – the stories somehow have an added dimension just by there being the parallel text there – minds are opened, even if it’s simply via the recognition of different codes of punctuation!
