Adapted from Tan's The Joy Luck Club, the haunting tale that unfolds is worthy of retelling-and of repeated rereading. On a rainy afternoon, a woman shares with three restless granddaughters her "earliest memory" from her childhood in China. John Philbrook, San Francisco Public LibraryĬopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. A successful collaboration of compelling text and absorbing illustrations that will make young readers crave more. Primary colors reign in the 12 sumptuous full-page pictures, as well as in the smaller vignettes that pepper and punctuate the narrative. They are extremely detailed, providing both accurate cultural detail of the period (the tale is set somewhere in the two decades after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, i.e., the 1920s or '30s) and a child's romantic imaginings. The illustrations are an integral part of this version and can best be described as phantasmagorical or Chinese baroque. Tan has a good tale here, and she retells it well for children: while the story is in progress, it is told from the child's point of view at beginning and ending frames, the grandmother's voice is used. On the evening of the Moon Festival, she is separated from her family, and goes through several fascinating and scary adventures until she is finally reunited with them.
Here it is set in the frame of a grandmother regaling her three granddaughters on a rainy afternoon with a tale from her childhood. More than just an inherited object, the jewelry represents a mother’s constant love and a daughter’s priceless value.Grade 4-6- This is a reworking of a story from the author's adult novel, The Joy Luck Club (Putnam, 1989). Similar gifts are given to June by Suyuan, and to An-mei by An-mei’s mother. Lindo continues the legacy by giving the same pendant to her daughter Waverly before Waverly’s first chess competition. Material sacrifice, no matter how great, doesn’t matter if it protects her daughter. Lindo’s mother’s jade pendant is her only prized possession, but she presents it to Lindo on their last day together, hoping it brings her daughter good fortune and protection.
In The Joy Luck Club however, the initial owner never keeps jewelry for herself, but gives it to her daughter. In Chinese tradition, jewelry has additional significance they’re often worn as protection charms from harm.
Owning a single piece of jewelry speaks to the hard work it took to earn it, and to the preciousness of the material possession. Almost all the main characters grow up in impoverished families without many luxuries. Throughout the novel, valuable jewelry is passed from mothers to daughters, symbolizing inheritance and sacrifice.
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