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Silk Umbrellas

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Silk Umbrellas

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Overview

"A sensitive portrayal of a family in Thailand. . . . This gracefully told story will resonate with many young readers." — Booklist (starred review)

Eleven-year-old Noi is learning to paint like her grandmother. She and her older sister, Ting, spend many rapt hours in the jungle watching as Kun Ya paints delicate silk umbrellas to sell at the market. But one day Kun Ma and Kun Pa announce that Ting must start working at a local radio factory to help support the family. As the days and weeks pass, Noi anxiously sees her own fate reflected in her sister’s constricting world. Can Noi find a way to master her fear of failure and stand up for her gift — and Kun Ya’s tradition — before the future masters her?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763671914
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	02/11/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Lexile:	870L (what's this?)
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Carolyn Marsden is the acclaimed author of The Gold-Threaded Dress and its sequel, The Quail Club, as well as Silk Umbrellas, Moon Runner, When Heaven Fell, The Buddha’s Diamonds (with Thâ'y Pháp Niêm), The Jade Dragon (with Virginia Shin-Mui Loh), Sahwira (with Philip Matzigkeit), Take Me with You, and Starfields.

Carolyn Marsden was born in Mexico City of missionary parents. She spent six years in Mexico before moving to southern California. Her husband is from Thailand, and together they have two daughters. Because of these diverse influences in her life, Carolyn is drawn to writing about children outside mainstream American culture.

The Gold-Threaded Dress, Carolyn’s first published book, was favorably reviewed in the New York Times and received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly. It made several state lists and was one of the Booklist Top Ten First Youth Novels of 2002.

Silk Umbrellas, set in Thailand, which received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly, was one of the Booklist Top Ten Art Novels of 2003, a Junior Library Guild Selection, and a nominee for the 2005 Texas Bluebonnet Award.

Working in collaboration with people who grew up in fascinating cultures, Carolyn has gone on to write award-winning books set in Vietnam, Mexico, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and Italy.

Three Things You Might Not Know About Carolyn:

1. If I weren’t a writer, I would be a visual artist. I love to paint and collage!

2. I also love to play with my two rescue dogs—a golden cocker spaniel and a terrier/whippet/beagle mutt.

3. I also love to dance: ballet, hip hop, improv, and modern.

Read an Excerpt

On the third day, Noi took an umbrella of a soft brown color. She closed her eyes and listened for the scene as Kun Ya had taught her. She saw Kun Ya holding a stick of sugar cane out to an elephant. The elephant reached with its trunk.

Oh, but an elephant! How could the umbrella have asked her to paint something so difficult!

Slowly, Noi mixed different shades of gray in the bowls. The vision of the elephant had come to her, but she was afraid of spoiling the umbrella.

She closed her eyes again and looked inside until she could see the elephant in the jungle, could hear its thick feet in the long grass, the small snorts it made with its trunk.

Noi painted, forgetting about being afraid, keeping the image of the elephant steady within her.

When Kun Ya woke up, Noi showed her the brown umbrella, twirling it slowly in the gloom of the rainy afternoon. Kun Ya reached out, her hand hovering over the elephant, never touching the silk, but tracing the shapes that Noi had painted. "Someday soon, Noi, you'll be selling these umbrellas."

Noi's heart beat faster, as though it would strike its way out of her chest. She couldn't speak a word.

From the B&N Reads Blog

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Editorial Reviews

Set in northern Thailand, Marsden's (The Gold-Threaded Dress) graceful, compact novel centers on an 11-year-old who delights in helping her grandmother paint jungle-inspired designs on silk umbrellas to sell at market. Noi, accustomed to contributing only minor details to the artwork, trembles when her grandmother instructs her to paint a butterfly on the silk, advising, "Paint with all of you. Become the butterfly." Since the land Noi's father once farmed was sold to a developer, he now, ironically, lays bricks for the houses that will fill his former farmland. The family barely gets by with his part-time income, that from the silk umbrellas, and the mosquito nets Noi's mother stitches. Then Noi's mother signs up Noi's 15-year-old sister, Ting, to work in a factory making radios-a tedious, joyless task. Marsden laces her lyrical passages with effective imagery: when Noi's grandmother protests Ting's factory work, their mother says, " `Without [Ting's] work, we don't have enough.' Her words sounded like coins being counted out one by one." The creative, free-spirited Noi holds out hope that her umbrella painting may be her salvation from a fate like her sister's. The author captures the exotic smells, tastes and sounds that define Noi's world and shapes an equally affecting portrait of a family coping with the changes thrust upon it. Ages 8-12. (Mar.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Gr 3-6-Noi, 11, lives in a small village in Thailand with her parents, her grandmother, and her older sister. Her carefree life, filled with family and school, is changing as farmland is sold to developers, costing her father his job. Money is scarce, and the girl is stunned when Ting is sent to work in a factory. Her horror grows when she visits her sister at her job one day and realizes that this might be her destiny as well. Noi, however, has other plans. She has been helping her grandmother, who paints silk umbrellas to sell at the market and knows that she has a talent. The interaction between Noi and Kun Ya, who teaches her how to paint with her entire body and mind, is beautiful, and reminiscent of Linda Sue Park's A Single Shard (Clarion, 2001). As the characters go about their daily tasks, facing hardships and illness, but sharing their love, the story blends details about food preparation, modes of travel, work, and the celebration of a special holiday, presenting a real sense of this distant place. The Thai words sprinkled throughout the text are clear in context and also defined in a glossary. A simple but inspiring story of a child with talent, desire, and belief in herself.-Susan Oliver, Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library System, FL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

A gentle and exotic story about an 11-year-old girl's life in Thailand. Noi loves to sit with her grandmother and assist her as she paints floral and animal patterns on brightly colored silk umbrellas. Noi is beginning to paint herself, feeling the shape of a leaf inside her mind and letting it out through the brush. Her mother makes mosquito nets and her father makes bricks, but there is still not quite enough to support the family. Noi's older sister Ting is sent to the factory to assemble radios. She works very long hours, even on Saturday and holidays. Noi is horrified, and more so when her grandmother takes to her bed during the rains and does not paint. But during the holiday of the Floating Baskets, Loy Krathong, Noi finds a way to contribute to the family and her place in it. The language is soft and clear as rainwater, a glimpse into a way of life little known to American children. Marsden includes a brief Thai glossary. (Fiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews