Little Stone Lion. [Photo/dangdang.com]

Little Stone Lion

This book belongs to an illustrated book series, "China's Illustrations", which focuses on telling the stories about mythical characters from Chinese fairy tales. Maybe there are too many princesses from Disneyland and heroes from Japanese animation and comic books; Chinese children need to know more tales from their own culture.

Little Stone Lion gives readers three close-ups of a stone lion, in which readers might believe it is an immensely powerful patron at first, but later find it a very small stone lion, even smaller than a normal-size cat. It's lonely and sees people come and go, like a witness to history.

"When children grow up, they will leave…" the little stone lion says.

As a middle-aged adult, I can feel the loneliness of the little lion, yet its bravery and positive attitude moved me. Although it never becomes a magnificent patron worshipped by people, it always smiles and enjoys its life as a "small potato".