Nana's Book Library

• Age: 4-8+
• Particulars (Out of 5):  
• A tall tale. Problem solving, humor, consequences for bad behavior *****   
  • Inappropriate language:  None.
  • Sexual references:  None.   

Reminder: Nana’s Books are rated G.  Anyone could read them, or listen to them being read aloud.

This book is a hoot.  It’s been delighting children, including my children and grandchildren, for nearly 90 years.  It is a tall tale, and the illustrations are deliberately simple and cartoonish to show that – like all tale tales – this is just a story. Like Aesop’s fables, it also teaches a lesson.

            “Once upon a time there were Five Chinese Brothers and they all looked exactly alike.  They lived with their mother in a little house not far from the sea.  The First Chinese Brother could swallow the sea.  The Second Chinese Brother had an iron neck.  The Third Chinese Brother could stretch and stretch and stretch his legs.  The Fourth Chinese Brother could not be burned.  And The Fifth Chinese Brother could hold his breath indefinitely.”

            Every morning, the First Chinese Brother goes fishing, and he always comes back with something beautiful and rare that he can sell for a very good price.  One day, a little boy asks if he can go fishing with him.  The First Chinese Brother says no, but the little boy begs and begs until he says okay – “Under one condition,” said he, “and that is that you shall obey me promptly.”  

            “Yes, yes,” the little boy promised.  The First Chinese Brother reminds him again, and again the boy promises:  when he gets the signal, he will come right back to the shore.  So the First Chinese Brother swallows the sea.  The boy runs around stuffing his pockets with pretty rocks and shells.  But it is very hard to hold the sea:  the First Chinese Brother desperately signals for the boy to come back.  (The illustrations are great, by the way.)  The boy not only ignores him – he runs even further away, makes faces at the struggling First Chinese Brother and runs as fast as he can the other way.  All of a sudden, the sea forces its way back out of the Brother’s mouth, the boy disappears, and the First Chinese Brother returns to the village alone.

             He is arrested, put in prison, tried and condemned to have his head cut off!  But he asks to go and say goodbye to his mother.  “It is only fair,” said the judge, and the Second Chinese Brother came back in his place…

            This book is available in hardcover and paperback on Amazon (hardcover is cheaper).  It is also available, for much less, used in paperback and hardcover on eBay and Abebooks.   

©Janet Farrar Worthington

Note:  I am an Amazon affiliate, so if you do click a link and buy a book, I will theoretically make a small amount of money, but I’m just starting this thing, so I don’t even know how that works.   Still, full disclosure, etc