Sans Souci, Daniel. 2002. THE RABBIT AND THE DRAGON KING. Ill. by Eujin Kim Neilan. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mill Press. ISBN: 1563978806.
In this
retelling of a Korean folk tale, an imperious, dying king who happens to be a dragon and live under water, needs to prevent his kingdom from falling into ruin. His advisors, who happen to be sea creatures, hurry to his bedside, where, out of his earshot, his queen and his personal physician decide that the only way for him to survive is to eat a rabbit’s heart. A shark, an octopus, and a swordfish volunteer to go out and find the heart, but they lack the capability to move on land, so the job falls to the turtle. Armed with a magic powder to enable the rabbit to breathe under water, the turtle swims off to search for a rabbit, which he soon finds and brings back to the king. After a brief conversation, they return to the king’s bedside, where the king outlines the plan he has in store for the rabbit. Not unexpectedly, the rabbit balks but is able to convince the king that for her own reasons she has hidden her heart elsewhere. Once she returns to land to find it, she will bring it back to cure the king. What the king does not know is that the rabbit has substituted a persimmon for her heart, but that does not matter. He has the heart, the rabbit has a string of pearls as a reward, and the story ends happily.CRITICAL ANALYSIS
In this straightforward, quickly moving story, a number of morals or concepts to guide one’s life arise to create an overall plot outline. The first is the power of belief, as stated by the queen early in the story. The Dragon King does not truly need a rabbit’s heart, and the rabbit agrees and gives him a substitute that placates the king. Another idea is the need to find happiness in what we have instead of chasing possibilities that may appear better on the surface. Upon first meeting the turtle, the rabbit complains about how boring and routine living on land has become and how she longs for a change. She gets her wish for adventure, but she almost loses her life.
A final one is the importance of individuals, shown when the king and rabbit are discussing why the king needs a new heart, and how the sacrifice of an “insignificant” rabbit will help the larger kingdom. While the advisors appear to accept this notion, the practical rabbit does not. These ideas may or may not be distinctly Korean, but they do frame the plot and allow for a basic conflict and resolution with a minimum of complications.
Talking fish and animals? A dragon? An underwater kingdom? One of the strengths of this combination beast and trickster tale is in its personification of its stock animal characters. The king believes in his strength, his wife is not unwilling to go behind his back, the fish in the kingdom supplicate to the king, the turtle is willing to “play both sides,” and the rabbit is a quick thinker who outwits even the mightiest of kings. Using humans instead of mythical and real animals as main characters would have made the same point, but the personifications provide a magical aspect to the story. Also, originally, it could have “masked” its main idea. For an imaginative young audience or for Korean society, the unreal characters would not be much of a stretch.
The underwater and land settings require a character who can bridge both worlds, in addition to a method of getting the rabbit to breathe under the water. This leads to two things: the rabbit-turtle interaction and the infusion of magic into the story. The turtle is a plodding servant, out to do the bidding of the king. When he finally finds the rabbit, their humorous conversation centers not only on the turtle’s responsibility but also on their shared history, an allusion to “The Tortoise and the Hare” story of Aesop. (This may or may not have been in the original Korean version, but it works well here for readers familiar with the story.) The magic enters with the potion, the means of getting the rabbit into the kingdom, not to mention the talking animals.
Its audience of independent young readers, or even those readers who would need the story read to them, will thoroughly enjoy the page layout and especially the illustrations. While some of the vocabulary and sentence structures San Souci uses may be a bit beyond the youngest of independent readers, his text is generally clear and easy to read.
Each page contains a minimum of text divided into a few short paragraphs supported and enhanced by Kim Neilan’s large and detailed illustrations that in nearly all cases occupy at least a full page. All of these paintings are richly colored, adding emotion and depth to what otherwise would be a rather uncomplicated tale. The Dragon King, with a moustache we in the West may consider to be almost typically Asian (Confucian Chinese?), is shown to be angry and desperate in darker blues and purples, with his eyes and mouth expressing his pain. On the other hand, the rabbit luxuriates in a verdant world of green and yellow during the day and purple at night. When she meets the Dragon King in his palace, he is dwarfed in size. In the four spreads where they interact, the rabbit is portrayed in his wonderment, disbelief, and humility after she convinces the king of her plan to return with her heart.
What my seven-year-old niece said: She liked the colors and how they showed when the characters were angry. She also picked up on the allusion to the first time the rabbit and the turtle’s ancestors had met and enjoyed that a lot. The big first letters on each page of text appealed to her, and as she read she liked the ending because it was a surprise. She really didn’t know what to expect.
REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
--Storytellers will find attractive material in the repartee, the scheme of events, and the three sturdy characters. Both author and illustrator add humorous innuendo and bits of drama. (SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, November 2002)
-- Some of the subtleties of the tale will be lost on the youngest of readers but as a read-aloud, this will enchant primary-age readers and engage older readers who will delight in Rabbit's cleverness. (KIRKUS REVIEWS, September 2002)
-- The rabbit doesn't want to die, either, and his (sic) clever ploy not only saves his life, it makes the king believe he has cheated death. (PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY, October 2002)
CONNECTIONS
--With its rich paintings, this book could easily be used in art classes from middle school and above to show how a text can be enlivened through visual art.
--Another book by the same duo:
IN THE MOONLIGHT MIST: A KOREAN TALE. ISBN: 978-1563977541
--A smattering of the many folk tales/collections from Korea:
THE GREEN FROGS: A KOREAN FOLKTALE. Yumi Heo. ISBN: 978-0618432288
KOREAN FOLK-TALES. Oxford Myths and Legends (series). ISBN: 978-0195216738
THE STORY BAG: A COLLECTION OF KOREAN FOLKTALES. So-Un Kim, translated by Setsu Higashi. ISBN: 978-1596543737 (2009 reprint of a 1955 text)
No comments:
Post a Comment