The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks, by Katherine Paterson, Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon

             In this story, a lord who enjoys collecting beautiful items finds a duck with gorgeous feathers and takes him captive. Since this duck is separated from his mate, he becomes less beautiful because he hangs his head low and does not speak. When a kitchen maid named Yasuko notices that the bird misses his mate, she releases him. However, a servant named Shozo receives the punishment for Yasuko’s actions. Shozo and Yasuko eventually fall in love but are punished when the lord thinks they secretly planned to release the duck together. In the end, mysterious messengers save and take in Shozo and Yasuko from the woods and nurse them back to health. In the morning, the messengers have disappeared and the couple sees the two ducks that seem to thank them for their kindness. In the end, Shozo and Yasuko live long, joyful lives and have many children.

            I would most likely use this story with third and fourth graders. There is a lot of text on each page and there is not enough action to capture the attention of children younger than third grade. However, this story teaches an amazing lesson about being kind and kindness being reciprocated. Additionally, it teaches values of Eastern Asia cultures like deep respect for one another and for nature, so this would be a great book to use in Social Studies when learning about these cultures. The illustrations also reflect these cultures, so it would be engaging for the students to investigate and compare these illustrations with other cultures.

            Furthermore, since there are different elements and layers to this story, the class can work in groups or as a whole to make inferences. For example, they could conjecture about who the mysterious messengers are. They could also think about the insights given concerning the values of the people who started this tale long ago.