The Painted Wall and Other Strange Tales

Michael Bedard collects 23 stories from the Liao-Chai in The Painted Wall and Other Strange Tales, ancient stories from Chinese oral and written traditions. A Taoist priest teaches a stingy pear-seller a lesson in ""Planting a Pear Tree."" In ""The Tiger of Chao-cheng,"" when a tiger kills an old woman's only son, the magistrate orders the tiger to provide for the old woman as a son would. In ""Pianpian, the Leaf Fairy,"" a young man falls for a mysterious woman who makes clothes, food and even a mule out of leaves, and he learns the fragility of love.