Lon Po Po

Lon Po Po, translated and illustrated by Ed Young, tells the Chinese version of Little Red Riding Hood. A mother leaves her three children alone to go visit their grandmother, warning her children to be good and to lock the door when it gets dark. A wolf watches her leave and knows that the children are alone. Taking advantage of this fact, he pretends to be their grandmother (or po po) and goes into their house. The children then outsmart him and he dies.

The dedication (“To all the wolves of the world for lending their good name as a tangible symbol for our darkness”) helped me understand the story on a different level. Last class we talked about how every part of a book has a meaning, and this dedication helped me to see that point. I have never thought about this story where the wolf is anything but a wolf, but according to the author, the wolf represents humans’ fears. This is such an interesting way of looking at the story. The author views the wolf as symbolizing humans’ fears. In this way, humans represent everything they are afraid of as the wolf in the story.

Each illustration is framed on the page. This framing helps to order the story and assists the pictures in telling the story. The illustrations are beautiful. They are muted and done with a lot of dark colors, to show the darkness of the story. They are made up mostly of black, greens, blues, and yellows. Young uses the contrast of lightness and darkness to create shadows on the page. The effect of the shadows is to create in the reader a feeling of fear and darkness as well. Both the colors and shadows allow the reader to feel a little of the fear the three children are experiencing. The pictures of the children’s faces drew me into the story even more as I was reading it. Just looking at their expressions, I felt that I could feel their fear.

Like the familiar American version of Little Red Riding Hood, this story addresses multiple themes, such as trust and courage. The children learn that they should not trust strangers, even when those strangers disguise themselves as a familiar person, like their grandmother. The children also learn how to be courageous when they come up with a plan to outsmart the wolf. They tell him that they are going to pick magic gingko nuts. The wolf says that he is too feeble to climb up into the tree, so the children offer to carry him up in a basket. When he is almost to the top of the tree, the children drop the basket and he dies. They learn to work together and be brave to overcome their fears.

This book made me think about the other Asian take on a familiar fairy tale that I recently read, The Korean Cinderella. Both stories had the same general theme as I was used to, as well as a few variations from that theme. The illustrations in both books are beautiful, although the illustrator of The Korean Cinderella was able to incorporate more culture into the story than in this book. Both books offer young readers a way to see a different culture through a fairy tale that is already familiar to them.