“The Bamboo Grove”
By: Yoko Kawashima Watkins
Illustrated by: Jean and Mou-sien Tseng
Bradbury press, New York.
Copyright 1992
(Traditional Literature Selection #1)
Tales from the bamboo grove consisted of a foreword and five different folk tales. The author explained in the foreword that the tales told in this book were recited to her as a child growing up in Korea. These folk tales were passed down from generation to generation and were a great source of comfort for her family. She has a distinct memory of when and why each of these stories was told to her. For example the first story was of a beautiful girl who discovered how beautiful she really was. She became obsesses with keeping that beauty, it became all consuming with her. She prayed that her beauty would never fade and her wish was granted, yet there were unthinkable consequences. She was transformed into a lake dragon, but she would never grow old and lose her beauty.
While the stories are all very interesting and unique they are basically all life lessons. There is a text to self relationship in all of these stories using what we think of as a “the grass is always greener” or “be careful what you wish for “type of message. These are messages we communicate commonly, only we use different methods and stories to do so. The text to world relationship is a universal one, as this book demonstrates. Stories or messages we relate to our family are commonly retold around the world. The text to text connection I felt in this book was from the book “My name was Keoko” by Barbara Sue Park. In Watkins foreword she talked about Korean culture which reminded me so much of Parks book and how culture dictated so much of what happened in their lives.
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