Children's Book Analysis
By: Diana Gutenbegrer
Title: The Story About Ping
Written by: Marjorie Flack
Illustrated by: Kurt Wiese
Published: 1933
About the Author and Illustrator
Marjorie Flack was born in October of 1897 in Long Island, New York. Flack is best known for her children's books The Story About Ping (1933) and The Boats on the River (1946) which received a Caldecott Honor in 1947. (Palmquist, Children's Literature Network, 2013)
Kurt Wiese was born in April of 1887 in Minden, Germany. Before becoming a children's book illustrator Wiese traveled throughout the Far East and became an exporter in China. During World War I, Wiese was captured by the Japanese and was detained at a prisoner-of-war camp in Australia. After being released he returned to Germany and then eventually moved to Brazil where he began his illustration career. Wiese received the Caldecott Honor in 1946 for You Can Write Chinese and in 1948 for Fish in the Air. (Palmquist, Children's Literature Network, 2013)
About the Book
The Story About Ping has been a popular selection for children's literature since it's first publication release in 1933. Beginning in the 1950's the story was read once a week on the famous television show Captain Kangaroo for a consistent 17 years. (Unknown, 2013)
According to a poll taken by the National Education Association in 2007 found at NEA.org, the book was rated number 97 for the Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children and is found in bookshelves across the world. (NEA, 2007)
The Story begins with the introduction of a beautiful young duck named Ping. He lives with his extremely large extended family on a boat with two wise-eyes that sails down the Yangtze river. Every morning their master would allow them off the boat to search for food; however as soon as their master would call them back with a, "La-la-la-la-lei!" the family would return to the boat as quickly as possible to avoid being the last one to arrive. Ping was always very careful to not be the last duck in line, for that duck would be spanked on the back. One afternoon, Ping was searching for food and missed his master's call and realized he would be the last to return to the boat. Since Ping did not want to be spanked he decided to hide and he watched the wise-eyed boat sail away. Ping began to feel extremely lonely so he decided to swim down the Yangtze river where he was caught by a young boy and his family who was going to cook him for supper. The young boy felt it was wrong to eat such a beautiful duck so he let him free. With luck on Ping's side, he decided to head back to his family on the wise-eyed boat. Ping knew he was last again, but he still marched behind the others up to the boat and accepted the spank from his master.
My Analysis
After reading The Story About Ping I was truly amazed that this
children's book has had more positive reviews than negative. Click here to read reviews. Although
it was written in a generation where spanking was generally accepted, I
found that the general lesson the author is presenting sets a fear into
young minds that it is not OK to be last, and when you are, you will be
punished. Also, if you try to avoid punishment, you will face death or
other horrible situations. Although the story is well written for its
time and will definitely interest and engage its reader, it does contain
racist stereotypes in the text and illustrations, outdated views of the
Chinese culture, and generally provides a negative effect on a child's
self esteem. 
I found many stereotypes within the text of this book, as well as within the illustrations. In the beginning of the story we are introduced to Ping. Well first, when I hear the name "Ping" I immediately think of Peking duck, a well-known Chinese dish, which actually comes into play later on in the story when Ping is about to become a family's dinner. I'm not sure why the author chose Ping as the name of our character, but it definitely comes across ironically disturbing in my eyes. Anyway, we then meet Ping's extended family that consists of his mother and father and two sisters and three brothers and eleven aunts and seven uncles and forty-two cousins. Now hearing this the reader can immediately come to the conclusion that Chinese families are large in general and all live together under one roof, which in today's generation is typically not true. Once we meet Ping's family we are introduced to their "Master." Illustrated as a yellow man wearing a customary Chinese outfit and a rice hat. He is also holding a long whip that he uses to punish the last duck in line. All the human characters within this story are colored yellow with slanted eyes and straight black hair, some in pony tails. Even the young boy has two small pig tails on the top of his head. Now why is this? Well typically people of Asian descent are known as having yellow skin and of course we associate slanted eyes to Asian ethnicities. Even the boat in which they live on is referred to as the Wise-eyed boat and is illustrated as "Asian Looking." The "Master" even calls out, "La-la-la-la-lei!" which to me seems that Flack is trying to portray an Asian accent within this character and is somewhat offensive to myself being Asian. Now having a "Master" is something I directly associate with slavery. Although slavery was not legal in the 1930's, in which this book was published, the reader gets the sense that the need for superiority still existed and that the Chinese people practiced the act of dominance over those of lower status, and it was accepted. Animal cruelty also seems to arise in this book numerous times. First of course with the spanking of the ducks, but we also see it when Ping visits a fishing boat with strange, dark fishing birds that would swoop down and catch fish for their "Master." To keep the birds from eating the whole fish they had metal bands strapped around their necks. Now if this isn't animal cruelty, I don't know what is; however after researching, I found an article at ChinaTravel.com about how Chinese fishermen learn to train cormorant birds to catch fish for them and it has been used for many generations and is typically accurate yet unfortunate for these birds. Now yes, there are many stereotypical issues and outdated material found within the text and illustrations in this book; however my main problem is the fact that it focuses on the punishment of the young duck or "child" when arriving last and when the duck shows fear in his punishment it leads to the risk of death. Surprisingly, after researching numerous websites, many mothers do not agree with me. Many feel that this story provides a positive reinforcement of following directions and provides an accurate context of the Chinese culture, however I would not read this to my own children in fear that they might get the impression that they will be punished for being last or even think that it is OK to spank for this reason. Work Cited
NEA. (2007). National Education Association. Retrieved
from Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children: http://www.nea.org/grants/13154.htm
Palmquist, V. (2013, March 24). Birthday Bios: Kurt Wiese.
Retrieved from Chilldren's Literature Network:
http://www.childrensliteraturenetwork.org/birthbios/brthpage/04apr/4-21wiese.html
Palmquist, V. (2013, March 24). Children's Literature
Network. Retrieved from Birthday Bios: Marjorie Flack: http://www.childrensliteraturenetwork.org/birthbios/brthpage/10oct/10-23flack.html
Unknown. (2013, January). Wikipedia. Retrieved
from The Story About Ping: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_about_Ping
I greatly enjoyed the content and aesthetics of your blog. Great analysis ang you found a great example of chinese stereotypes
ReplyDeleteYour analysis of this story is very detailed! you did a great job...Very interesting about Chinese fisherman training birds to catch their fish!
ReplyDeleteI like your analysis of “The Story About Ping” about Chinese culture. I can see from your analysis that book contains racist stereotypes in the text and illustrations, and generally provides a negative effect on a child's self esteem.
ReplyDeleteNataliya Tokaryeva HD25
There is definitely stereotyping in the illustrations. I remember hearing this book as a child. I did not think anything of it back then. But reading your analysis puts into a different light.
ReplyDeleteExcellent analysis of this popular children's book! Well done, thorough. I like how you added your personal opinion in addition to the many reviews and websites. Nice touch to add a complete reading of the book. Very nice job!
ReplyDeleteGreat analysis! I liked that you included a reading of the story. When I just read the "about the book" I didn't think there was much bad with it. It didn't seem like a wonderful culturally relevant story for children, but it didn't seem harmful. Your analysis changed my mind. I agree that the illustrations are very stereotypical, and the story is quite a bit outdated with the large families, and the dominance over the lower class. I also agree with your point of animal cruelty. I wouldn't want to advertise hitting ducks in my classroom like it was ok. I was spanked as a child, so the reference to spanking didn't really bother me, but this story definitely has some flaws. I'm surprised that your opinion is in the minority. -GoodwinHDev25
ReplyDeleteGood and thoughtful analysis. Even yours illustrations and back ground are so colorful. You found stereotypes of Chinese.
ReplyDeleteMy parents read this to me as a bedtime story. And I can still clearly remember my thoughts, as a young child (which was not that long ago), while they read to me. I sympathized with Ping, I felt sorry for him and recognized that he was being treated wrongly, and that taught me a lesson: to always be kind to animals, (and people!) and only bring punishment when punishment was due, and to recognize when someone else is being treated wrongly. Is it racist to depict a culture as they were in a certain time period? If it is, then we should probably not teach history to our kids at all.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I heard the story in elementary school and don't remember being traumatized by it. And as for Chinese stereotypes, for Heaven's sake the story was written more than 90 years ago. Are we to not allow children to read Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh, or any of Beatrix Potter's books? They the idea of Peter Rabbit's father being baked into a pie was a lot scarier than Ping being cooked. And the characters wear pre-Mao outfits but this was before Mao came into power. In Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books white people dress the way they did almost 150 years ago in America. Should kids not read those books, either? Ok, the human beings have yellow skin and slanted eyes but have you seen any Anime cartoons? Their Western characters are pasty, overly tall and long-long limbed with extremely round eyes. Is that racist? And so the duck's name is Ping. There are human beings in China named Ping just as there are people in English speaking countries named "Bob" or "Bill." What would you expect the duck to be called? George? Joe? And yes, they serve Peking Duck in Chinese restaurants. And they serve Wiener Schnitzel in German (really Austrian) restaurants and Spaghetti Bolognese in Italian restaurants. And speaking of which, so the duck man calls "la-la-la-la-lei" to call the ducks. If the book were set in Austria or Switzerland and he were calling "yo-de-lay-dee-ho" or in the American South and he yelled "yee-haw" or "soo-ee" would that be racist? Give it a break.
DeleteI was cleaning out some of my things from childhood at my mothers house and I came across this book. I threw out a lot of books but for some reason this was one that I kept. I didn't know why I kept it, I was going through them very quickly and for some reason I felt I needed to keep this one. When I brought them home I put them away and it was several months before I sat down to go through them again. I threw away more books but for some reason I kept this The Story About Ping. I still didn't read it but I put it in my grandkids book pile. Many many months later I come to today and I decide it's time to get rid of some of my grandkids books. They have too many and today I finally read The Story About Ping. Now I know why I felt I needed to keep this book. Did I mention I was an abused child. This book was terrifying for me. It reinforces the abuse for a child already being abused. Its like saying read this, you get beat because that's my job or responsibility and bad things will happen to you if you try to leave. And a quick search on the web tells me not many people share my opinion.
ReplyDelete