Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (2009)

By: Grace Lin

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, New York, NY

Cover Image by: Alison Impey

Lexile: 810L

Accelerated Reader: 7.0

Inspiring, Adventurous, Culturally rich, Family oriented, Spiritual 

Suggested Delivery: small group reading

Electronic Resources to Support Reading: 

     1.  Interactive Activities

          This is the author Grace Lin's website, complete with many interactive activities for students to complete that are directly related to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon upon finishing the story.  Students may use mathematical computation and refer back to the story to figure out roughly how old Dragon is using "peach math"and matching the corresponding symbols to the scene in the story, along with many other interesting activities that enrich this reading experience.

    2.  Japanese Folktales

         This website provides many classic examples of exceptional Japanese folktales, very similar to the many tales told throughout Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.  Students may explore different tales that include a lesson or moral in order to become more familiar with the art of the folktale and to prepare themselves in order to compose their own folktale.

Key Vocabulary:

• magistrate - a high ranking, powerful government official 

• sheepish - appearing embarrassed or ashamed 

• barren - lifeless, land that is unable to produce vegetation

• enthralled - fascinated, captured attention 

• dumbfounded - astonished or amazed

• placidly - calmly, peacefully, even-tempered

Before Reading:  Grace Lin The whole class will watch a short video clip in which Grace Lin discusses aspects of her story and inspirations, character traits, and how the character of Minli came into fruition.  Students will gain insight into the importance of different aspects such as how the author was inspired by different Asian cultures and lessons in writing the book.

During Reading:  Students will complete an ongoing timeline complete with a chronological sequence of events that Minli takes during the course of the story.  Characters encountered during each event will also be recorded with a brief description of their importance or relation to the story.   

After Reading:  Students will independently create their own version of an Asian folktale, inspired by the numerous Asian folktales they read throughout the story.  Their folktale may include any character or animal, but it must present a dilemma and suggest a lesson or moral of the story.  

Writing Activity:  It took Minli to leave home in search of The Old Man of the Moon for Ma to realize all of her blessings, more importantly her loving family, and realize she was "rich" in a different sense of the word.  Students will write about a time in their life when they lost something or something was taken away, and it made them realize how lucky and grateful they were to have had it.  What did this experience teach them, and was it similar at all to Minli and Ma's experience?  Was it different?