Asian Art, Legends and our April Happenings

Disclosure: I was sent these books to review free of charge in exchange for an honest review. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review.

I spent a good part of the past couple of days planning for April. I am so excited with some of the things I have planned. This month we will be exploring Japan and having a Japanese Tea Party. We will be celebrating Earth Day and sharing some great books and resources for your celebrations and we will be celebrating National Princess Week with some great resources and a giveaway. We also have a school vacation in there with a short trip so expect a review on trips and are planning some visits to museums, so there will definitely be some art resources shared including our first book today: Adventures in Asian Art: An Afternoon at the Museum by Sue DiCicco with Deborah Clearwaters and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. 

This book is about a family's visit to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. The story is rhyming and shares various items seen at the museum. Then there are boxes with more information about the artwork or particular item.

The museum has artwork from different Asian countries including Korea, Thailand, Japan, India, Indonesia, Tibet, China, Iran and more. There are mixed media for pictures with actual photographs of the museum items. 

The information about the items also gives a bit about the culture from which the art comes. There are also questions often in them to have the reader or child relate the art to his or her own life. This book takes a reader to a museum in the United States that lets us visit Asia throughout time. It is full of fun and lots of information. And of course the questions in the book help spark a discussion if read together.

Our next book is from a classic tale from Hong Kong. It is the legend of Amah Rock in the Sha Tin area of Hong Kong. This rock is said to resemble a woman with a baby on her back and there is a classic tale about it. 

Amah Rock By Chong Fat (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

This is a version of the tale. The young woman falls in love and marries a local fisherman. They soon have a son. The husband goes out one day with the other fishing boats and they all hit a horrible storm. All the men return except her husband. Every morning she with their baby on her back goes up on the top of a cliff and looks out to the sea to wait for her husband.  Eventually a goddess takes pity on her and turns them into stone. Then the husband arrives home. And we will leave it at that so you have to read the story for the ending of this version.

 The illustrations in this book are beautiful and colorful. The story itself is sweet and a bit sad at times. I really enjoyed reading this book and so did Hazel. In fact she told me she loved it part way through. I love that it tells a story of deep love and loyalty and shows the family as such an important role in one's life. A perfect activity to go with this book would be building with stones or even just stacking them.

Stacked in Stone By LadyDragonfly CC
from Michigan, USA (Stacked in Stone) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

We are very happy to recommend these books as a look into Asian cultures and hope you will check them out!!