The Funny Little Woman


Title- The Funny Little Woman 
Author/Retold- Arlene Mosel
Illustrated by Blair Lent
Grade level- 3rd Grade-5th Grade
Awards- Caldecott Medal

The story begins with a lady who has a funny laugh and she is making dumplings. One day, one of her dumplings fell in a hole in her house and she tried to get it. A hole 8n her house opened and she and the dumpling fell through the hole. She landed in a big room with many statues. She went to one of the statues and asked where her dumpling went. The statue said it passed by a couple of minutes ago. The statue also warned her not to go down the road cause the wicked oni is down there. She laughed and she said that she’s not scared of any oni. Other statues along the path have the same warning and again she laughed and wasn’t scared. Oni smelled the human and grabbed the lady and brought her back to his tribe of other oni. They said they won’t hurt her if she cooked for them. The oni had a magical ladle that made multiple bowls of rice from one grain of rice, so the lady cooked for them and made dumplings. She started to miss home, so she stole the ladle and got into a boat went back to her home. The oni tried to chase her but they couldn’t swim, so they sucked up all the water. The lady tried to run, but she slipped in the mud and the oni began to laugh. They spit up the water and the lady got back in the boat and paddled to the hole that led her home. The lady used the magic ladle to make more rice and dumplings. She became the richest woman in Japan. She laughed. 

This story was based on a tale by Lafcadio Hearn. The story and the illustrations match very well. I don’t know what are of the classroom I would use this in, maybe introducing Japanese culture in World History. I would use this book as a classroom book. I would out in my classroom library or read it to students as a beginning of class activity and the respond about the book in their journals.


 

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