THE SEVEN CHINESE BROTHERS
by Margaret Mahy & illustrated by Mou-sien Tseng
The folk tale made familiar in Bishop's The Five Chinese Brothers (1938) is here in a more expansive version linking it to the tyrannical emperor who planned the Great Wall. In Mahy's nicely cadenced, economical telling, the different talents of the seven brothers are neatly woven into the story's fabric to make a pleasing variety in the events—which turn on the Wall and its construction—and to escalate the suspense; in the denouement, the callous emperor receives poetic justice when he is washed away by the youngest brother's tears. The Tsengs' attractive, realistic watercolors are beautifully evocative of the Chinese landscape, lively and humorous in depicting characters and action. Not a replacement for Bishop but a complement to it, for older children and with more authentic illustrations.