Based on an original tale by award-winning Mongolian author, Dashdondog Jamba, and retold by distinguished international author, Anne Pellowski, find out how the traditional Mongolian tent house (called a ger in Mongolian and a yurt in Turkish), was created in the ancient past by drawing on the example of nature, and how it later became a beloved symbol of friendship and harmony. With stunning illustrations of Mongolian culture by renowned artist, Beatriz Vidal, young readers can experience first-hand the wide-open steppes of this vast and wild land bordering on Russia to the north and China to the south.
Dashdondog Jamba (1941-2017) was a world-renowned Mongolian author who dedicated his life to writing, translating, and telling stories for children. A passionate promoter of childrens reading, he traveled with his nomadic library for over 24 years across Mongolia, covering a distance of more than 85,000 miles. Dashdondog wrote over 100 childrens books and translated more than 50 books by foreign writers. Among his award-winning titles are Tales on Horseback and Mongolian Folktales. Anne Pellowski is a distinguished Polish-American storyteller and authority on international literature for children. From 1966-1981 she worked for the U.S. Committee to UNICEF as the founding director of the Information Center on Childrens Cultures. The recipient of several awards, including a National Storytelling Network Lifetime Achievement Award, she was a nominee for the prestigious 2010 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. Annes writings include The World of Childrens Literature and The Storytelling Handbook. She lives in Winona, Wisconsin.
Beatriz Vidal is an award-winning Argentinean painter, illustrator, and teacher. Her work has appeared in well-known magazines such as The New York Times, Womans Day, and The New Yorker. Beatriz won the prestigious Tomas Rivera Mexican American Childrens Book Award for her title A Library for Juana, while her books Rainbow Crow and Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain were Reading Rainbow selections. Beatriz divides her time between C rdoba in Argentina and New York City in the USA.
“A prolific Mongolian storyteller’s original legend of how the distinctive dwelling known as the ger came to be invented. Adapted into spare and stately English by renowned storyteller Pellowski, the story is punctuated by quarrels. Once, all living things lived peaceably in ‘a big house called the earth.’ But fights began, and all went to find homes of their own — including a man who, being ‘very old’ and ‘very intelligent,’ instructs his seven sons to gather willow branches, rope, and fleeces to construct a sturdy round shelter. But the house blows down after the old man dies because his sons have ignored his command to ‘work together and tighten the ropes that keep our home on the ground.…’”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Inherently interesting, informative and entertaining, Story of the Mongolian Tent House is especially and unreservedly recommended for family, daycare center, preschool, elementary school, and community library Multicultural Literature & Picture Book collections.”
—MBR Bookwatch (Midwest Book Review)
“Based on an original tale by award-winning Mongolian author, Dashdondog Jamba, this fable is retold by international renowned author, Anne Pellowski. Young readers will love traveling through the vast and wild landscape of Mongolia. This beautifully illustrated book (from Wisdom Tales Press) will take them on a journey through mostly uninhabited territory carved from endless steppes, mountains and valleys.”
—from the Travelnitch website (travelnitch.org)
