The Magic Paintbrush Liz Miles
Cloris Sopha
Some of the descriptions and comments, as well as the unfortunate characterization of a negative, greedy character as overweight, could still be problematic. They are few enough though, that a well-prepared teacher, librarian, parent, or caregiver could alter them during read-alouds. However I would avoid this for students who struggle with body positivity or who might be triggered with the mention of force feeding.
The relationship between Steve and his grandfather starts off full of misunderstandings and poor communication, but grows throughout the story into a true family relationship. They both manage to communicate their needs through the magic paintbrush and gain some understanding of each other.
A young and kind peasant boy named Ma Liang cuts reeds and bamboo for the rich. He loves drawing and dreams of being an artist. As Ma Liang falls asleep one night after looking at his drawings, an elderly man appears in his dream and gives him a paintbrush. He says that the brush has great power and tells Ma Liang to use it wisely, then disappears. Ma Liang uses the brush to paint a rooster. When he paints the last feather, the rooster comes to life and flies away. Realizing the power of the brush, Ma Liang vows to use it to help others and remembers the words of the old man. Ma Liang paints rice and fish to help hungry people, which then become real.
The emperor finds out about the magic paintbrush. He visits Ma Liang and invites him to his home. Unknown to Ma Liang, the emperor is selfish and arrogant; he plans to steal the paintbrush and make a lot of money by creating valuable things with it and keeping them. When Ma Liang refuses to obey the emperor's command to paint a peacock for him, due to his promise to the old magician to use the brush wisely, he is imprisoned in a dungeon.
The emperor takes the paintbrush and shows it off to his friends, but when he draws pictures with it, they do not become real. Realizing in anger that the pictures would only become real when Ma Liang uses the magic paintbrush, the emperor offers Ma Liang his freedom if he paints a mountain of gold for him. To defeat the emperor's greed, Ma Liang devises a plan to trick him and agrees, telling the emperor to have patience and obey his words. He paints a sea much to the emperor's dismay but Ma Liang assures him that he is trying to make his work impressive. After the boy paints a golden mountain in the distance, the impressed emperor orders him to paint a ship for him and his men to gather the gold.
The emperor and his men hurry aboard the ship and sail towards the golden mountain. When they reach the middle of the sea, the emperor tells Ma Liang to paint wind to increase the ship's speed. Ma Liang paints a wind cloud and then continues to paint storm clouds. The horrified emperor calls out to Ma Liang to ease the weather, saying that he and his men and friends would die. But Ma Liang defies his orders and continues to paint more storm clouds. Giant waves crash against the ship, and the vessel breaks, sinking and drowning the emperor and his friends.
Ma Liang returns to his simple, happy life with his family. He is always ready to help everyone in need. Although he continues to paint more artworks, he only occasionally uses the magic paintbrush. Although the magic paintbrush is known by everyone, no one dares Ma Liang to use it for evil or greedy purposes.
The story has been readapted a number of times by Chinese authors, common versions include the story of the same name from author Han Xing as well as Hong Xuntao. The American adaptation titled as "Tye May and the Magic Brush" by Molly Bang features a female protagonist as the title character.
The spark that convinced my best friend, Dakota, to tag along with me on my road trip from Yosemite to Michigan. The spark that brought back a dream for me that started when I was 12. The spark that set all the wheels into motion.
With this big goal in mind, we parted ways with Yosemite, and headed north. We decided it would be a good idea to arrive in the Tetons Saturday night, spend Sunday relaxing and getting beta, and then attempt the Grand on Monday. Seemed like the perfect idea. Except I had a cold, and my cough and inability to breathe at 100% made me a bit weary.
Arriving in the Tetons as the sunset, we parked outside our basecamp for the next few days. Our friends, Rachel and Mash, have a house inside the park boundary, and luckily for us they had an extra bedroom available. After greeting them with warm smiles and hugs, we all sat down around the kitchen table. Time to discuss some beta.
Quickly, our original plan of two days in the Tetons changed to three days. Instead of relaxing on Sunday, we were convinced to do a 20.5 mile hike. I mean when your friends say "you'll go through a magical fairy forest and hike down a glacial carved valley that perfectly frames the Grand," you kind of have to change your plans. This would then make Monday our relaxing day, and Tuesday would become the true test day-- were we capable of the fitness required to climb the Grand.
I wake up, full of stoke, and practically jump out of bed. Well let's just say Dakota isn't as awake as I am at this point, but I'm use to his turtle speed in the morning, so I just go about my routine hoping my movement will get him to at least sit up in bed. I'm all changed and ready to go, Dakota is just a few steps behind me. Our original plan was to have Dakota drive so I could make oatmeal for my breakfast as we drove to the trailhead (multitasking, wohoo!) but Dakota's pre-sunrise alertness had other intentions. So I took drivers seat.
I've done this section of trail before. I knew what was ahead of me. Just a few very long switchbacks and then we'd be on the slightly uphill straight-a-way into Garnet Canyon. But I also had no time frame planned out in my mind. All I was prepared for was a long day, that would probably turn into Type 3 fun. I knew it was going to be worth it though. So I just kept my feet moving forward.
Then Garnet Canyon came into view. We both stopped in our tracks, turned off our headlamps, and stood in awe. The half-moon was perfectly illuminating the canyon and the snow-capped peaks encompassing it.
Turning our headlamps back on, we entered the first boulder field. Weaving in and out of giant granite chunks, it was nice to be off a maintained trail and using a new set of muscles. As we got farther into the canyon and started gaining elevation, Dakota took the lead. He was now wide awake and going his usual pace. Boy was I glad we were doing this in the dark. I could tell this scree field was very steep but with just a few headlamps in front of us it was hard to tell how much elevation we still had to gain. Then the lower saddle came into view, and my heart sank. The headlamps close to the top of the saddle looked so far away and so far above us. Dang. Let the type 3 fun begin.
But then as soon as I started feeling down, we were at the fixed rope. However a party of twelve was all over the ropes. A quick glance between Dakota and myself was all we needed. We strapped on our helmets and Dakota started up the class 4 scramble just to the left of the fixed ropes. Quickly passing those still stuck on the fixed ropes, and going up a few more switchbacks, we found ourselves on the Lower Saddle. The gusts of wind were bone chilling and I shoved my hands deep into my pockets, hoping to keep them warm. But we were at the Lower Saddle. It was 6:38am- the sun was just beginning to rise. We had made it to this point way faster than either of us could have imagined. Our last two months spent adventuring at 10,000+ feet in the Sierras was paying off.
We hunkered down next to a boulder, blocked from the wind. I took out my protein bar, took a bite, and almost spit it out. At 11,700ft hunger just goes away. Forcing myself to take one more bite, we stood up and looked at our next goal. The Upper Saddle.
Yes my pace was slower than Dakota's, but I was moving. One step at a time up the loose scree field. The Grand was casting a shadow across the landscape below us, and the Middle Teton was now illuminated by the first light of the day. The weather was perfect. Cold, but perfect.
As we maneuvered our way from the lower to the upper saddle, we caught up to the three guys in front of us. And behind us also came a party of three. The eight of us formed a send train, and we all made our way scrambling and smiling to the Upper Saddle.
Putting on another coat, pulling up our harnesses, and clipping on our gear we prepared for the climb. Dakota tied the rope to him and threw the coiled rope around his neck. The climb started with a traverse and we were feeling confident so no need to use the rope yet. We figured we'd rope up and begin using the gear once we started feeling uncomfortable.
My racing heartbeat does nothing to drown out the internal chatter happening inside my head. It's 3:15am, and I'm following Bre up the first section of trail to climb the Grand Teton. I hate this. I'm cold, tired, and truly, the last thing I want to do is ascend 7,000 of elevation up this mountain. Everyone thinks that being in the mountains and nature is glamorous--and sure, we have fun and make rad adventures happen--but this morning I wasn't in the right headspace.
About a mile into the darkness, I think to myself, how far until I can say something? Maybe I can pretend to not feel good? All the while asking myself, why am I not psyched on this? What's going on?
I think it's important to be honest with these adventures. I hate mornings most of the time. Some days I take forever to get the energy to get outside. I've learned though, that if I start my physical game, generally my mental game will quickly follow. Nothing clears the mind better than pushing yourself physically while in nature. Easier said than done at 3am.
Play music. Music always gets you stoked Dakota. I cue up a summer banger and start to feel a little more rhythm to my step. Damn, Bre is walking so fast... she is so stoked--at this point I was upset with myself for being so out of the head game required for dawn patrol, that I didn't realize how much ground we were covering, until 3.1 miles had gone by. We had covered almost 2k feet of elevation and over 3 miles and the time was only 4:15am... suddenly I wasn't cold.
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