''The Funny Little Woman'' is a book "retold by"

Arlene Mosel Arlene Tichy Mosel (August 27, 1921 – May 1996) was an American children's librarian who wrote the text for two award-winning children's picture books illustrated by Blair Lent ''Tikki Tikki Tembo'' won the annual Boston Globe–Horn Book Award ...

. Released by

E. P. Dutton E. P. Dutton was an American Publishing, book publishing company. It was founded as a book retailer in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1852 by Edward Payson Dutton. Since 1986, it has been an imprint of Penguin Group. Creator Edward Payson Dutton ( ...

, it was the recipient of the

Caldecott Medal The Randolph Caldecott Medal, frequently shortened to just the Caldecott, annually recognizes the preceding year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It is awarded to the illustrator by the Association for Library Service ...

for

illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation or visual explanation of a text, concept or process, designed for integration in print and digital published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, vid ...

in 1973, and was illustrated by

Blair Lent Blair Lent (January 22, 1930 – January 27, 2009), who sometimes wrote as Ernest Small, was an American illustrator and writer of children's books, perhaps best known for those with Chinese themes such as ''Tikki Tikki Tembo'' (1968). He won the ...

.American Library Association
Caldecott Medal Winners, 1938 - Present
URL accessed 12 January 2013. "The Old Woman who Lost her Dumplings" was the title of the original tale by

Lafcadio Hearn , born Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (; el, Πατρίκιος Λευκάδιος Χέρν, Patríkios Lefkádios Chérn, Irish language, Irish: Pádraig Lafcadio O'hEarain), was an Irish people, Irish-Greeks, Greek-Japanese people, Japanese writer, t ...

, * The title on the 2nd page is "The old woman who lost her dumplings".
Appendix.
Whole list of other titles and authors in the ''Japanese fairy tale'' series.

* Lacy1986 cites the following book, but it contains typos "Fizō" which is a mis-copy of "Jizō": ** which Mosel had adapted.

Plot

The story is set in old

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. It is about is a funny little woman (who is an old woman). She likes to laugh ("Tee-he-he-he") and makes

dumpling Dumpling is a broad class of dishes that consist of pieces of dough (made from a variety of starch sources), oftentimes wrapped around a filling. The dough can be based on bread, flour, buckwheat or potatoes, and may be filled with meat, fi ...

s out of

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

. One day, one of her dumplings rolls down a hole. The little old woman chases the lost dumpling and ends up in a strange place underground, lined with '' Jizo'' (guardian statues). The ''Jizo''s warn the old woman not to go after the dumpling because of wicked ''

oni An is a kind of ''yōkai'', demon, orc, ogre, or troll in Japanese folklore. Oni are mostly known for their fierce and evil nature manifested in their propensity for murder and cannibalism. Notwithstanding their evil reputation, oni possess i ...

'' (monsters) who live there, but she does anyway. An ''oni'' grabs the old woman and takes her in a boat across a river to the house of the ''oni''. The ''oni'' forces the old woman to cook rice for them. They give her a magic paddle to make a full pot of rice from a single grain. Now the old woman is enjoying being busy serving them plenty of rice dumplings for dinner every day. But months later, the old woman becomes homesick. One afternoon, she decided to return home. When the ''oni'' are not looking, the old woman takes the magic paddle, and escapes on a boat on the river. Soon the monsters found that the old woman was heading home. They want to stop the her. But they realize they cannot swim. So they drank all the river water. When the water bed dries up, the boat gets stuck into the mud. The old woman (who was too worried to laugh) tried to run away. But she gets stuck too in the mud. When she struggles, the ''oni'' all laugh. But when they do, they accidentally release the water from their mouths back into the river. When the water comes back again, the old woman can finish crossing to the other side in the boat. The old woman returns home. She makes many rice dumplings with the magic paddle and sells them to people, and becomes "the richest woman in all of Japan."

References

External links

* 1972 children's books Caldecott Medal–winning works Children's fiction books American picture books E. P. Dutton books Picture books by Arlene Mosel Children's books set in Japan Japan in non-Japanese culture {{child-picture-book-stub