Bouchard, David. The Dragon New Year: A Chinese Legend. Illus. Shong-Yang Huang. Vancouver, BC: Raincoast Books, 1999.
This story is tells the tale of the imagined origin of the traditional Chinese New Year celebration, but also provides a section at the end that clearly shows where the facts end and the author's imagination begins. There is a strong sense of storytelling in the narrative which means that even though the story is long, it remains compelling. The paintings stay true to the story in the text, providing stunning visuals that range from more realistic depictions in the present-time narrative bookmarks at the opening and closing of the story (see the cover image), to more a impressionist-like expressiveness and energy in the re-telling of the old tale. On their own, however, the pictures do not tell a story - they show individual scenes but there is not logical narrative that comes out of the sequence of these images. The illustrations are beautiful and masterful on their own, and even though they function more like a slide show to accompany a storytelling event, this is an undeniably gorgeous book.
No comments:
Post a Comment