Eyes of the Dragon

By Margaret Leaf

Book Overview

An artist agrees to paint a dragon on the wall of a Chinese village, but the magistrate's insistence that he paint eyes on the dragon has amazing results. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688061559
• ISBN13: 9780688061555
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 1.03 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 0.5" x 11.5"
• Age Range: 4 to 7 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 2

Customer Reviews

The Gift Of Understanding Your Blindnesses

This might be my favorite Ed Young book, not only for his outstanding illustrations but also for the masterful story. That it is out of print, or appears to be, just brings me an intense sadness. On Chinese New Year I offer it as a story, maybe THE story, that has meanings on many levels and it just works with children, as a read-aloud it has never failed me. And then I follow reading it with having children make dragon drawings. (So on to the story, this review might contain a spoiler, I'll try not to do that, but I'm forewarning those readers of children's picture books not to continue if you want to be surprised, please. Especially sorry in a book so long out of print.) In this story the main character is a painter. A Visionary! He does not enter the story until later, after the set up, and remains enigmatic. He isn't developed as an individual for a reason, yet he is honorable, talented, fair and good. We see that. We are going to experience blindness elsewhere. We start the story high in mountains below the summits of a dragon king where a village is overseen by a magistrate. The villagers fear the things they do not know, cannot see, that live in the spaces above them. The magistrate is wise enough to erect a great wall to secure his people, but vain and political enough to fixate on his good works as the outward projection of his greatness. The majesty of his wall looms before him as the his externalization of his superiority. It's blindness to the point of fixation, and a concretization of his natural right to leadership for him. He isn't evil or really shown as bad, just a vain man that loses sight-perspective and will regain it in a painful way. At a cost through the clarity of sight of an artist. In short he's a man with a fall soon coming. Boy, do these illustrations move your mood with color. Better than that soundtrack. Well it is a visual universe. His grandson and village kids get caught writing on "his" wall and further stun him by defending their actions over the dullness of said wall. They call it too plain. He then, in discussions with elders, decides to bring a painter to decorate the wall with an image of the dragon king. Another achievement of his superior mind, actually taken unacknowledged from a younger suggester. A deal is struck with the painter, 40 pieces of silver to go to the Tao temple,and no argument over the finished product. As is the case with many a made thing, the Magistrate cannot express a humble stance of gratitude with an beautiful and effort filled work; he's blind in yet another way. Nor can he recognize he pales compared to this talent, no awe at what the painter manages to go do. This is outstandingly alluded to in Ed Young's chalk work. And the magistrate actually insists the work be changed, improved upon.....(telling more will reveal something I need to do to comment further....stop reading!) The magistrate insists on eyes which are left blank on this dragon and placing them there (the ar