#retelling

Author: CHEN Weidong Illustrator: PENG Chao Publisher: Xiao Pan Publishing House / Kuaikan Manhua Format: Paperback Genre: Action / Adventure / Comedy / Drama Date: 2006 Number of issues: 20 Pages: 176 ISBN: 9788994208459 ASIN: 8994208453 Language: Chinese / English / French Also known as: Monkey King Adaptation: Retelling

Summary:

Monkey King is a twenty-volume comics series based on the legendary Chinese novel The Journey to the West. It is a magisterial work that took seventy people over six years to complete. The Journey to the West is at once a comedy, a drama, a satire, a meditation on faith and discipline, and a fantastical dramatization of China's history. Its creation covers many centuries and several dynasties. Begun during the Song Dynasty (10th~13th century), Journey is set against the backdrop of the 7th century Tang Dynasty, and tells the story of a priest named San Zang, who introduces China to the Mahayana Buddhist scriptures of India, and his trio of the monkey king Sun Wu Kong, the gluttonous pig Zhu Bajie, and the quiet but noble sea monster Sha Wu Jing. The San Zang who appears in Journey to the West is a specialist in Tripitaka, and is based on a real priest, named Xuan Zang. Xuan Zang lived from 602 to 664, and have traveled the western lands and traded with other countries along the western border from 627 or 629 to 645. More than three hundred years later, a story based on Xuan Zang's adventures, first appeared. The Journey to the West originated from this story. The Song Dynasty was founded in 960, yet because the only known author of Journey to the West, Wu Cheng en, died in 1582, during the Ming Dynasty, the story is considered the result of collective creation spanning five hundred years. The story also traveled through several countries and includes at least four different timelines. The events of Journey to the West, which include epic battles and threatened palaces and imperiled kings, could resonate with readers during almost any age, but the story focuses on portraying a peaceful society where deviance is ultimately trumped by enlightenment, violence defeated by benevolence. It is this balance, between depicting familiar events of conquest and telling a story about the search for truth, that makes The Journey to the West so beloved today. The author, Mr. Wei Dong Chen, is a highly acclaimed and beloved Chinese artist and an influential leader in the New Chinese Cartoon trend. His company, Creator World in Tianjin, is the largest comics studio in China. He has published hundreds of cartoons, which have been recognized for their strong literary value throughout the world. In 2005, he undertook the monumental effort of translating four classic Chinese novels into serialized comic form. After six years of great and enthusiastic work, he completed his dream, which now consists of 12,800 pages of beautiful drawings and epic storytelling. Monkey King is one of the four novels. Monkey King is a new landmark of comic artistry in China, and is a bold and exhilarating treatment of one of the definitive works of Chinese literature.

Source: https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%A5%BF%E6%B8%B8%E8%AE%B0/55685262

A Fairytale with Teeth

This week, we’re visiting a familiar fairy tale through a slightly stranger, more theatrical lens with our first edition copy of Beauty & the Beast, retold and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein. Published in 1989 by E. P. Dutton, this picture book embraces the older, darker bones of the story rather than the softened versions many of us grew up with.

Mordicai Gerstein (1935–2019), an American author, illustrator, and film director best known for his Caldecott Medal-winning The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, approaches the tale as both storyteller and stage designer. His Beast is no gentle hybrid, tusked, horned, feathered, and tailed; he looks like a creature pulled straight from a medieval bestiary. The pen-and-wash illustrations are deliberately stylized, with period-inspired clothing and expressive linework that heighten the book’s slightly uncanny tone.

Narratively, this retelling stays close to early French versions of the tale, particularly the 18th-century tradition in which a single stolen rose sets everything in motion. Beauty’s choice to take her father’s place, her long stay at the castle, her troubling dreams, and her delayed return all unfold with quiet inevitability. This is a fairy tale that trusts its structure and lets the tension build at its own pace.

One of the book’s most striking features is its use of color; each page rests against a different background hue, giving the story a dreamlike rhythm and reinforcing the sense that Beauty is moving through emotional and moral territory as much as physical space.

What’s especially satisfying about this retelling is how it lets the story keep its edge. The Beast is still intimidating, the setting still feels strange and enchanted, and Beauty’s choices carry real weight. It’s a reminder that the best fairy tales aren’t just pretty, they’re a little unsettling, a little romantic, and always about change.

-View more Fairytale Friday posts

--View more from our Historical Curriculum Collection

---Melissa (loving stories that bite), Distinctive Collections Library Assistant

Eddie does his best to dodge the morning traffic.

That crazy lady’s chickens are loose again, and it’s creating a minor amount of havoc. The baker always goes out of his way to say good morning to Eddie, and, when him and uncle Wayne had first moved to the little village of Hawkins, Eddie was sure he was just being polite.