Girl on a quest to capture elements. [s]

[Lisely]

This is probably a long-shot request but my mom is looking for a book for a friend and she doesn't know the title or the author but her friend says the book is about a girl who is challenged to capture water, fire and wind in paper. She uses her origami skills and folds a paper cup to hold water, a Chinese lantern to hold fire, and an accordian fan to hold wind.

Also apparently it's a book for younger audiences. Like middle school aged.

Sound familiar to anyone?

[Cheryl]

Any idea when she read/ saw it? That is, if she read it in the 60's, we know it has to be at least that old....

[Lisely]

I've really got no idea on the time frame. Apparently mom is looking for it for a friend of hers so I don't really have much info. Mom just showed me the email from her friend so I have updated my orig post with exactly what she said about the book though.

[Cheryl]

The way you originally worded it almost sounded familiar, but now it sounds unfamiliar but interesting. I hope someone recognizes it!

[Lisely]

I know right, I'm really curious about it too now.

[Abigail]

I thought this sounded interesting, and have been trying to find it, using every variant on "origami" and "paper folding" I can think of. The closest I've come (and it may well be wrong) is The Flame, the Breeze, and the Shadow, written and illustrated by Esphyr Slobodkina: "No one is happy when a rich and powerful general summons the three daughters of a poor merchant to live in his house so that they may be brought up as "Perfect Young Ladies" for his sons."

The WorldCat listing of this book mentioned that its genre included riddles, and its subjects included "paper products--juvenile fiction," "paper lanterns--juvenile fiction," and "fans--juvenile fiction." Also, the author's website said that it was based on a traditional Chinese tale, but didn't specify which one. Amazon has a picture of the cover and a couple of inside pages. Though the book seems pretty easy to get from sellers, that's about all I could find out about it online. (It doesn't even have a Goodreads listing.)

Any little detail your mom's friend could remember--like whether it was a picture book or part of a story collection--would be helpful.

[Abigail]

Persistence pays off: after further searching, I'm pretty sure the story is called "Paper Flowers" or "The Story of Paper Flower," by Fran Stallings, and is part of Joining In: An Anthology of Audience Participation Stories and How to Tell Them.

Someone else (scroll to "2)" about 3/4 down) was trying to find the story too: "Paper Flower - someone help me with a source for this one. It is a Cinderella variant. Young Japanese girl works as a servant. Employer will let her go home only if she can bring her 3 things: water in paper, wind in paper and fire in paper. The girl makes a paper cup to hold water, a paper lantern to put a candle in and a fan to make wind. (You do origami as you tell the story). So that takes care of fire, water, wind. The girl begins to sell origami figures and changes her name to paper flower." and then the author had this to say: "When I wrote The Story of Paper Flower, many years ago, I warned the editors that it was NOT an authentic folktale -- but it has taken on a life of its own. The motifs came from Korea and China. The paperfolds are not real origami but seem to be almost universal. The plot is my contribution." (Other places, such as an Amazon review of the book, say basically the same thing--that it is the author's original story.)

Someone says here (about halfway down) that Stallings lists her story sources in a note in Joining In and that one of them is "The Young Head of the Family" (the version specified is that in Tatterhood and Other Tales, edited by Ethel Johnston Phelps).

-----
Here is a different telling of "The Young Head of the Family" that I found (there are many, of course): Bring Me Three Gifts!, by Dori Jones Yang. No Goodreads listing, but pretty detailed info on the book here: http://hbavenues.com/highpoint/librar...

And another story I found with the riddle elements of the fire in paper, etc., but involving a man and a dragon: The Paper Dragon, by Marguerite Davol.

[Lisely]

Wow thanks so much for finding this. It'd been a while so I figured it was a lost cause, but you're awesome!

Thanks for all the extra info too! Mom's gonna be impressed. :D

[Abigail]

You're very welcome! :)

[Cheryl]

I'm confused - what is the actual book we're going to shelve to mark this as Solved?

[Abigail]

Joining In: An Anthology of Audience Participation Stories and How to Tell Them is the book that contains the story that was sought in the original post.



The other links were to show on what basis I concluded that the story was in that anthology, and some stories that are variants of the doing-impossible-things-with-paper theme in case the querier would prefer an actual kid's book (because the original post said that the sought book was aimed at a younger audience, but the Joining In anthology--while it does have actual stories--seems to be a semi-instructional volume aimed at the adult storyteller).

[Lisa]

Thanks, Abigail. I'll move and shelve it.