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The Seven Chinese Brothers
SOC/105

The Seven Chinese Brothers
I am going to take you on a journey mile away, to a small village in China. We will be covering a brief look into the Margaret Mahy’s background and how she made this short story a captivating read for readers of all ages. Then I will touch on the cultural significance of her work, and reflect whether her work is considered economically successful. Lastly, we will cover the cultural values enforced and challenged by this story.
Margaret Mahy, is a well know New Zealand children’s and young adult author, she has written many books covering fictional characters with strong personalities and supernatural strengths. She has a collection of over 40 novels, 20 collections of short stories and 100 picture books. The Seven Chinese Brothers, was published in the late 90’s, has been considered a national classic and an all-time best seller. Her books stand out from the rest by elaborating and spicing it up with more ironic humor and action than ever. She give you’re a life lesson in each story she tells, although brothers they are all different and special in their own ways. They will learn how to work together to save each other lives, and to me that is the biggest test of love.
How the pieces fit together most short story are not of life lessons, although they tell stories in their own way. Short stories usually have a fully developed theme and can be significantly shorter and less details than a novel some have real-life details others are fictional and purely for entertainment. This book is fictional and reaches readers as a touching and heartwarming act of selfishness. It teaches each reader that working together can conquer any obstacle put in your way.
Cultural significance simple put means the aesthetic, celebrated, methodical, societal, or spiritual values for past, present, and future generations. I consider this book to be a huge economic success, I read this book as a child and today I read it to my children. The Seven Chinese Brothers is still a popular seller in the big name books stores such as Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, Books-A-Million. There are even blogs that talk about how this read touches and instills values in the youth of today.
The Seven Chinese Brothers is a lesson telling book about courage, strength and overcoming obstacles by working together. Seven identical twins brothers were raised in China with their mother. They look so much alike no one could tell them apart or even knew that it was seven of them, they favored but each had their own unusual and unique gifts of power and strengths. The first brother had the amazing power of hearing, he could hear a pin drop form miles away, the second brother has phenomenal sight and could see hundreds of miles away. The third brothers possess uncontrollable strength. The fourth brother had bones of iron that could not be broken or bent. The fifth brother had legs that would stretch as tall as trees, while the sixth brother could not overheat and last but not least the seventh brother, the baby of the seven boys, they all made it their duty to keep him happy, if not he had the ability to flood out villages with his tears. They all had to combine their special talent to fool the cruel emperor Ch’in Huang.
Cultural values are abroad variety of ideas, beliefs and principles that are honored by members of different societies. The Seven Chinese Brothers watches the emperor use his power to mistreat and use the people of their village, not only did they save each other from constant abuse they saved an entire village that was suffering at the hands of its selfish leaders. It will teach children that may be caught up in a narrow way of life that together they are unstoppable.
We have covered a brief look into the Margaret Mahy’s background and how she made this short story a captivating read for readers of all ages. We also touched on the cultural significance of her work, and reflect whether her work is considered economically successful. Lastly, we covered the cultural values enforced and challenged by this story.
Reference
Mahy, M. (1990). The Seven Chinese Brothers. : Demco Media.
Mahy, M. (). Christian Book Barn. Retrieved from http://christianbookbarn.com

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