Mu Lan is at her loom when she hears the Emperor's call to arms. She rides off to war in her father's stead, embarking on a journey of ten thousand miles that takes her away from home for ten years. Her courage and valor bring her to the Emperor's attention and to the Golden Court. When offered whatever she wishes as a reward, she asks only to go home. There she surprises her mother and father, sister and brother - but it is her comrades in arms who are most surprised of all.
The Song of Mu Lan is closely translated from an ancient text and echoes the rhythms of Chinese, which is here faithfully reproduced in original calligraphy by Chan Bo Wan, the artist's father. Jeanne M. Lee has rendered the panorama of characters in silken watercolors, providing a lush counterpoint to the spare, elegant text.

wonderful! THIS is how u respectfully translate a traditional folk story as a children's book! ( )

I enjoyed reading The Song of Mu Lan because I am a Mulan fan. Mulan was remembered for dressing/acting as a man to participate in battle because her father was too sick to go. I think when reading this to a class, they would also like to watch the movie to compare the difference between the book and the movie. I like the way the text is in the book- it is very straight-forward and gets to the point. ( )

I liked this because I saw the non Disney side of a strong woman who went to fight for her family. There is English and Chinese characters with each page of illustration which was interesting

The traditional Chinese folk legend of Mu Lan, first set down as a poem in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE), is retold in this beautiful bilingual picture-book by Jeanne M. Lee, Chinese-American artist and children's author. A gender-bending tale of filial devotion, it sets out the story of Mu Lan, a young woman who takes her elderly father's place in the emperor's army, determined to spare him the suffering and privation of military life. Spending ten years in the field, Mu Lan advances to the rank of general, but declines the rewards offered by the emperor, deciding instead to return home, where her status as a woman is revealed.

In "Writing Chinese America Into Words and Images: Storytelling and Retelling of The Song of Mu Lan," a fascinating article that appeared in the April 2006 issue of The Lion and the Unicorn, scholar Lan Dong (whom I see has now published a full-length study on the subject, Mulan's Legend and Legacy in China and the United States), compared this picture-book to Disney's animated retelling of the (arguably) same tale, concluding that while the Disney production was really an American story, in exoticized Chinese garb, Lee's work (like that of Maxine Hong Kingston, in her classic The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts) was a genuine melding of Chinese and American traditions.

Although I found Dong's analysis insightful, as it concerned the cultural import of the various retellings of Mu Lan that she considered, and agree that this bilingual retelling is infinitely to be preferred to the Disney film, and its many print adaptations, I wasn't entirely satisfied with Lee's version, judged on its own merits. The watercolor illustrations, done by Lee herself, are gorgeous, as is the traditional calligraphy done by her father, Chan Bo Wan. But while I appreciated that the English translation here was faithful to the poetic form of the original, the text just wasn't that pleasing, as English. Song Nan Zhang, who chose to present his English translation in prose, in the similarly bilingual The Ballad of Mulan, made a wiser decision, I think, and if I could combine his text with Lee's illustrations, I would have my ideal "Mu Lan." As it is, I recommend this telling, together with Song Nan Zhang's, for all young readers interested in a more authentic retelling of this tale, particularly those who may only have encountered the Disney version up until now. ( )