The Magic Paintbrush

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This is not a usual Julia Donaldson book, as there is not the normal 'fun' approach to the manner in which the story unfurls. There is, however, her familiar strong but simple rhyming style running throughout. The illustrations are lovely and delicate, not the normal bold approach, complementing well the ancient oriental storyline. Whilst being read the story Children will relish looking at the pictures in wonderment, devouring the very different cultural aspects associated with ancient Chinese society.

I have some reservations around a write author appropriating a Chinese story (however beautifully) and not even having a "note to the reader" about where the story came from. I wonder if Edward Said would find this an example of his problematic "Orientalism" and I feel a little uncomfortable with it. I am personally slightly over rhyme but nevertheless enjoyed the way the story unfolded and the nearly dragon (I was almost disappointed but Donaldson immediately threw in a party to distract me- in a good way. When we had made our toys we evaluated them. We thought about what was good about our toys and what we would improve if we were to make them again. Miss Boyle's class realised that real pet toys were not made from household goods. We thought about what materials would be used if the toys were made in a factory. We began to use some of our new words from Science to describe them, such as; hard, flexible, transparent etc. Then he invited a lot of his friends to come to his home and showed them the magic paintbrush. He drew a lot of pictures, but they could not become real. He was very angry and asked some people to get Ma Liang. We can conclude the story with the moral lesson that greed is a harmful thing. As depicted in the magic paintbrush story, the rich man died because he was too greedy and wanted to become even richer.He though that some sweets might be yummy. He painted a lovely pink chocolate with a little heart on it, and some jelly snakes. He watched the dinosaur picture very carefully. Sure enough, very soon, the sweets and the chocolate that he had drawn beside the dinosaur just – disappeared. It was like he had never painted them at all. There wasn’t much time. The tiger seemed to swivel its hungry little eye towards the pretty antelope.

He drew a cow and it came to life when he observed how difficult it was for people to till the field. The cow might readily be used to plow the ground. He was overjoyed when he finally got his hands on the paintbrush, and he brought his pals around to see his new acquisition. He drew many pictures, but none of them seemed to come alive for him. Arthur very carefully painted a big bowl of porridge, just like Digby’s, except this time he covered it in strawberries and chocolate sauce. He thought a tiger would not be able to resist a big bowl of porridge, especially when it was covered with strawberries and chocolate sauce. But a few days later, the rich man whom Ma Liang helped heard that the magic paint brush could turn everything to life. He was a bad man so he had an idea to steal the paint brush from the young man. He knew that he could make a lot of money by turning things to life and keeping them, so he sent some people to the Ma Liang's home and took him to the prison. He got the magic paintbrush and felt very happy.If i have that magic paintbrush, i would like to draw things that i need. Like, stationnary, money for traveling, and i will draw any thing that i thing the poor people will need. I will bring it and keep it by my side so i can draw something usefull in the emergency case. When he had finished painting the antelope he was very happy with it. He thought it must be a girl antelope, because she was so pretty. From that day on, he used the paintbrush whenever people needed help. When he saw that people had no water to use in the fields, he drew a river and the river came to life. People could bring water from the river to the field and save a lot of time and energy. After that, the young man lived with his family happily and used the magic paintbrush to help the poor people as the old man had asked him to do and the magic paintbrush was known and loved by everyone. Enjoyed this story?

Once upon a time, there was a handsome boy called Digby. He was four years old. He loved to look at dinosaurs in his dinosaur book, and imagine what it was like to draw a real dinosaur… from life! The young man drew a large ship and grinned silently. The rich guy hopped onto the ship and set out to find the treasure, but when the ship reached the middle of the sea, Ma Liang created a tremendous wave that sank the ship, and the rich man was never seen again in the village. So now the boys were left with a triceratops, an antelope and a tiger in a cage to look after. It seemed they should be careful before they painted anything else. Already they had to spend ten minutes painting some nice green grass for the antelope, and then painting some nice bowls of water for all of them to wash their dinners down. Then they had to paint a night time sky, because they thought the animals must be getting tired by now. Then they had to paint pillows, quilts, a bed, and by that time the whole picture on both pieces of paper was getting far too crowded.That’s a pretty good dinosaur Digby,” he said. “But I think you’ve done his head a little bit wrong.” However an Emperor here’s of the things Shen has created and demands riches. When Shen refuses (upholding her promise to the man) she is imprisoned but soon uses her brush to escape. Digby shrugged. “That wouldn’t be so bad,” he said. “Your tooth is already a bit wobbly, isn’t it?” But in the village, there lived a rich man who was mean and decided to steal the paintbrush from the young man so that he could use it to become even richer. So he sent his servants to Ma Liang's home to steal the magic paintbrush.

It’s just the same as me,” said Digby. “My triceratops did exactly the same thing when I touched it. Perhaps the tiger doesn’t like you touching his tail. Why don’t you try to very carefully give him a pat?” Arthur snatched the paintbrushes away from his little brother and spread them all across the desk. They did make a mess. Every colour you could imagine was in their bristles. Then he grabbed a piece of paper and started to paint.

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Oh no,” said Digby, realising what Arthur, in the excitement of painting a beautiful animal, had forgotten. “Oh the poor antelope! She is going to be eaten by that tiger! What shall we do?” This is a lovely picture book with some spectacular illustrations. The well rooted morals of the story are easily linked to everyday scenarios. With the elements of magic, adventure and surprise this makes a lovely book for Foundation stage all the way through to lower Key Stage two. One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published. Most children love acting and it’s a tremendous way to improve their reading.