Chee-Lin: A Giraffe's Journey

Born in the grasslands of East Africa, Tweega the giraffe was very young when he was captured by hunters, and sold to the sultan at Malindi. Here he lived for a time, before being sent as a gift to the sultan of Bengal. From India, he was taken by Chinese sailors back to Nanjing, where he was thought to be the mythical chee-lin, an animal with the body of a deer, the tail of an ox and the hooves of a horse. An omen of peace and good fortune, the chee-lin was said to have only appeared once before in China, at the birth of Confucius. And so Tweega lived out the rest of his life in the possession of the emperor of China, far from his native home...

Based upon a true story, author/illustrator James Rumford's Chee-Lin: A Giraffe's Journey show more was inspired by Chinese artist Shen Du's 1414 painting, The Tribute Giraffe with Attendant, and upon accounts of the voyages of exploration undertaken by the Chinese Admiral Zheng He. Although little is known about the life story of the actual giraffe, Rumford has expanded upon the little information that is available, to imagine what the experiences of such a creature might be, captured and taken so far from his home. Although a beautiful book, both in the storytelling and in the artwork, which was created with casein paint, this was a rather melancholy read. There are moments of happiness, when Tweega finds humans who seem to care from him, but he is always being ripped from these new companions, and one never forgets that he is far from what he knows, and all on his own in an alien world. In many ways, this story reminded me of that found in Emily Arnold McCully's Clara: The (Mostly) True Story of the Rhinoceros who Dazzled Kings, Inspired Artists, and Won the Hearts of Everyone... While She Ate Her Way Up and Down a Continent. In that book, an 18th-century Indian rhinoceros was brought to Europe, where she was the only one of her kind, and where she was often thought to be a mythological being, just as Tweega was thought in China to be the long looked-for chee-lin.

Because it is a little text heavy for a picture-book, and because the themes it addresses could potentially be distressing - much like Clara the rhinoceros, Tweega dies in captivity, far from his native home - I would recommend this one to slightly older audiences, perhaps ages six and above. Children who enjoy animal stories will find it interesting, and it could also be used in a study unit about the Chinese voyages of exploration in the 15th century. show less