Dinosaur Museum

Between the lines: children of all ages love to read about dinosaurs

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 25 February, 2014, 11:32am

UPDATED : Tuesday, 25 February, 2014, 11:32am

Annie Holife@scmp.com

My daughters and I joined a dozen of their friends on a visit to the Legends of the Giant Dinosaurs exhibition at the Hong Kong Science Museum during the last school holidays. Our expectations were low but, to our surprise, it was a world-class educational experience that kept the group entertained for an entire morning.

There were robotic dinosaurs and a "petting zoo" where the children took turns prodding a stick at an animated Agilisaurus that responded with short forward lunges, swishing its tail or baring its teeth.

Children love to learn dinosaur names, and this point has not been lost on book publishers

The reconstruction of a fossil dig showed the important work done by palaeontologists. Scattered throughout were interactive games and electronic presentations designed to appeal to tech-savvy children.

Dozens of dinosaur fossils, including a replica of the 30-metre-long Daxiatitan that was discovered on the mainland, made up the finale.

Shaheen Bilgrami's Amazing Dinosaur Discovery is the perfect book to prepare ahead of this outing. It tells the story of Tom, a boy who loves dinosaurs, visiting a museum with his father. The book is arranged with the left-hand side showing pages from Tom's scrapbook to provide readers with trivia about each dinosaur.

The dinosaur fossils are on the right-hand pages, with clever acetate sliding panels. Pull out the panel and the fossilised bones are transformed into a full-colour creature from 100 million years ago in its natural environment.

"Bones. Bones. We look for bones. We look for the bones of dinosaurs." The work of palaeontologists is simply explained in Byron Barton's Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones.

Progressing from setting out to dig for bones, to wrapping and packing them for assembly at the museum, this picture book uses bold colours to help young children learn about dinosaurs as well as the fossils they see at museums.

One consistent factor about dinosaur books is that no matter the genre, whether fiction such as Jane Yolen's How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? or a non-fiction resource book such as Bob Barner's Dinosaur Bones, they all come with a back page containing an illustrated list of dinosaur names.

This doesn't happen with other animals. Picture books about birds, butterflies and bears rarely include an introduction to the different members of their species.

The exception to this dinosaur book phenomenon is Dinosaur! by Peter Sis. Why? Because it is a wordless picture book. The clean line drawings show the delightful experience of one boy's bath time when he takes his dinosaur bath toy into the tub with him.

Children seem to love learning the names of dinosaurs, and this point has not been lost on book publishers.

As I re-acquaint myself with those wonderfully multi-syllabic dinosaur names, my mind returns to Land of the Lost, the 1970s television series that was the genesis of my fascination with dinosaurs, and provoked my interest in science fiction and time travel.

Another indication of my old age is discovering that the large dinosaur that used to be called a Brontosaurus is now known as an Apatosaurus.

Legends of the Giant Dinosaurs, Hong Kong Science Museum, TST East until Apr 9

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Take some big steps back in time

Cinderella stories around the world

Between the lines: the Cinderella story is common to many different cultures

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 11 February, 2014, 11:01am

UPDATED : Tuesday, 11 February, 2014, 11:01am

Kind-hearted girl, oppressed by step-family, encounters magical guardian who transforms girl into the only one worthy of marrying the king. Does this plot sound familiar? Here's the big hint: king finds a wife by way of lost slipper of uncommon shoe size.

Yes, I am describing Cinderella. The elements of the Cinderella story are so universally appealing that variations exist in almost every culture around the globe. Let's begin with the most familiar, the Disney version. It is based on Cendrillon, a fairy tale written by Charles Perrault in the 17th-century.

Perrault retold this existing folk tale, together with other oral stories, and published the collection as Tales of Mother Goose. Some of the stories, including Cinderella, were then rewritten by the Brothers Grimm for their collection of fairy tales.

One thousand years before Perrault put pen to paper, a strikingly similar tale was being shared among families in China. Retold by Ai-Ling Louie, Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story from China is illustrated by Caldecott medalist Ed Young.

Instead of a fairy godmother, Yeh-Shen's guardian is a fish. When the fish is eaten by the evil stepmother, Yeh-Shen saves the bones, which turn out to have wish-granting properties.

There are two variations of the Cinderella story that don't mention footwear.

In Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters, John Steptoe retells the well-known African tale and lends his artful illustrations to recreate a jungle setting in Zimbabwe.

Mufaro has two beautiful daughters. One is selfish and conceited, while the other is kind and sensitive. Both travel to the city upon hearing that the king is seeking a wife, but their journeys and destiny diverge as a result of their character.

Steptoe is African-American, and all of his works deal with African history and culture. Yeh-Shen's illustrator Young is Chinese, and like Steptoe, is among a small group of ethnic minority artists who have made a career in children's literature.

The other variation tells of a disfigured Algonquin girl who beats out the competition - two beautiful but spoiled girls from the same village - to win the coveted role of new bride to the powerful Invisible Being.

Rafe Martin adapts this Native American folk tale in The Rough-Face Girl, with some remarkable portraiture by illustrator David Shannon.

For those who are interested in comparative studies, Judy Sierra'sCinderella presents 24 different versions in one anthology, complete with plot summary and cultural background for each story.

Marian Roalfe Cox collected even more versions in Cinderella: Three Hundred and Forty-Five Variants of Cinderella, Catskin, and Cap 0' Rushes, Abstracted and Tabulated, with a Discussion of Mediaeval Analogues and Notes.

The interest in collecting Cinderella stories is not a recent phenomenon, as Cox's tome was first published in 1891 by The Folklore Society in London.

Two questions to ponder during a candle-lit Valentine's Day dinner: Is magical assistance the only way a nice girl can expect to make a good marriage? And, if Cinderella's shoe fitted so perfectly, why did it fall off in the first place?


Annie Ho is board chairwoman of Bring Me a Book Hong Kong, a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving children's literacy by reading aloud to them. Visit bringmeabook.org.hk

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Cinderella also spent time in the jungle, and among the fishes

Dictionary Meanings for and by Children

Between the lines: learning the meanings depends on the book

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 28 January, 2014, 12:18pm

UPDATED : Tuesday, 28 January, 2014, 5:38pm

Annie Ho

"What's 'magical?'" my younger daughter asks. "Magical means muo shu," my elder daughter replies.

When my younger daughter wants to know what something is, her big sister simply gives an English or Chinese translation (depending on what language they're conversing in) rather than provide an actual definition.

My younger daughter, armed with only an English equivalent of a Chinese word or vice versa, somehow figures out their meanings.

I try to extract more from my elder daughter by asking: "And what does muo shu mean?" She replies: "It means magical." This is a drawback of growing up in a bilingual home.

I use the Kingfisher First Dictionary to show my children that there are generally accepted definitions of words.

For example, a button is defined as "a small round thing on clothes, that you push through a hole called a buttonhole to keep your clothes done up". The sun is "the big, bright star that we can see in the sky during the day".

Leading American writer Ruth Krauss cleverly compiled definitions as explained by children in A Hole is to Dig: A First Book of First Definitions, and even more cleverly invited Maurice Sendak to provide accompanying illustrations.

When my younger daughter asks what something is her sister gives the Cantonese translation

This pint-sized book was first published in 1952, and it's amusing to compare these definitions with the modern dictionary versions.

In A Hole is to Dig, "buttons are to keep people warm" and "the sun is to tell you what time it is every day".

Sendak's simple black-line drawings are recalled in Isol's illustrations for Doggy Slippers, another amusing look at what comes out of the mouths of babes.

Both are renowned illustrators: Sendak was the inaugural winner of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2003, and Isol (the pen name of Marisol Misenta) is the most recent recipient of this prestigious international children's literary award.

First published in Spanish as Pantuflas de Perrito, Doggy Slippers is a book of poems by Jorge Luján. He asked children around Latin America to write about their pets.

Some children described their pets, while others shared how they felt about their animals. Luján curated these writings into poems shaped by these children's thoughts and feelings, with quirky illustrations by fellow Argentinian Isol.

On my bookshelf are the only five books written or illustrated by Isol that have been translated into English. She has published 24 children's books and is also an accomplished recording artist of chamber music and pop songs. Isol has the uncanny ability to capture both the temperament and squiggly lined drawings of children.

At first glance, her illustrations seem unpolished, almost as if they were drawn by a six-year-old. Consequently, the drawings allow a child to grasp the artist's intent. They also give adults a glimpse of life through their childhood eyes.

My favourite poem from Doggy Slippers is the first in the book. It is accompanied by a cartoonish drawing of a pony-tailed, wide-eyed girl looking up towards the reader from a vast and sparse room.

It reads: "I want to buy/a toy poodle/a black/girl/puppy whose name is Olivia./Do you know where she lives?"

Annie Ho is board chairwoman of Bring Me a Book Hong Kong, a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving children's literacy by reading aloud to them. Visit bringmeabook.org.hk

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Spread the words with real meaning