Li Lun, My One-Day Loan

Last checked out: 1970.

I received notification this morning that my book from repository was ready to be checked out. Li Lun! I rushed over to the curriculum materials library (instead of having one big library, they have a bunch of small, specialized ones all over campus – I still think that’s weird) to pick him up and found some of the 2012 winners while I was there.  As he checked out my books, the librarian told me about an interview he had just listened to with the 2012 medal-winner author (Jack Gantos – apparently he went to jail for smuggling drugs when he was young!). He ended by saying, “OK, your books are due back on . . .” and then looked quizzically at the screen. “. . . today.” I don’t even graduate until Friday! And yet my library privileges ended today, just 24 hours after my last final. The University of Georgia library system runs a tight ship. I assured him I would return the books by their due date and hurried home (on my roller blades). Good thing Li Lun was only 96 pages long! 

Li Lun’s father is a fisherman, but Li Lun is afraid of the sea. When he tells his dad he does not want to go on his coming-of-age fishing trip, his dad slaps him, calls him a coward, hands him seven grains of rice, and tells him he must go to the tallest mountain on the island and grow seven times that number of grains. Li Lun visits a wise man to learn how to grow rice and then climbs the mountain with soil and bamboo sticks.

Crawling along the narrow ledge

 He plants his rice seeds on the top of the mountain and then fights off seagulls, rats, and drought for four moons until his rice is ripe.

Watering the precious rice plants

He only has one stalk left when he comes down from the mountain and goes to the temple where a temple-worker (who visited him on the top of the mountain) calls the whole village over and honors him as a courageous lad. And yes, he more than doubles his dad’s 49 requested grains.

"Li Lun has grown rice," the Good One tells the people.

Favorite part: I was going to write it verbatim, but I just realized that I already returned Li Lun to the library (these one-day library loans are rough).  When the temple worker guy visits Li Lun on the top of the mountain and hears his story, he tells him this cool thing about how planting or growing or harvesting or eating a grain of rice is as powerful or courageous or cool as moving a mountain, or something. It was deep, trust me.

Review: This book smelled AWESOME! I mean, most books from repository have great old-book smells, but this one was particularly pleasing. Also, I enjoyed the pictures. The story, however, was fairly uninteresting, although I did get this feeling of impending doom when he only had one stalk left and was quite relieved when it survived. And the book made me want to garden. That’s something. Finally,  I believe there might be more words in this blog than in the entire book of Li Lun, Lad of Courage.