81 pages • 2 hours read
Grace LinWhere The Mountain Meets The Moon
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
During Reading
Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
Chapters 1-4
Reading Check
What does Minli buy that makes her mother angry?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. In the story Minli’s father tells her about the Jade Dragon, what does she learn must happen in order for the mountain to become fruitful again?
2. In the story Minli’s father tells her about the Old Man of the Moon, why does Magistrate Tiger want to kill the grocer and his family?
Chapters 5-9
Reading Check
1. How many times does Minli rub the needle with the rock?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How do Ma and Ba react when they discover that Minli is gone?
2. When Minli runs out of water and drinks from the stream, what does she discover?
Paired Resource
“Why the Dragon Is Central to Chinese Culture”
- This 10-minute video from PBS’s Storied project explains the historical and cultural significance of dragons in China.
- This resource relates to the themes of The Value of Gratitude and The Virtue of Sacrifice.
- After seeing this video, what more do you understand about why the Jade Dragon story is so important to Minli? What does the Jade Dragon story teach about gratitude and sacrifice? Do you see any evidence that Minli takes these lessons to heart?
Chapters 10-15
Reading Check
1. For whom was the dragon originally painted?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does the dragon explain how he came to be tied up in ropes?
2. How does Minli use the monkeys’ greed to trap them?
Chapters 16-20
Reading Check
1. Where does the weaver girl tell Minli she might be able to find the king?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why did the buffalo boy decide that the person he met in the Inner City could not really be a king?
2. When Ba and Ma return from their attempt to find Minli, what does Ma do during dinner that shows she has changed?
Paired Resource
“Openness to Experience: The Gates of the Mind”
- This Scientific American article discusses research into the relationship between openness and curiosity and one’s perception of the world. Due to length and complexity, it may be better suited as a teacher-facing resource; with vocabulary pre-teaching, it may be manageable for more capable younger readers.
- This resource relates to the theme of The Power of Faith.
- What is the relationship between curiosity and openness? How does being open to the world relate to having faith? Which characters in this story show these qualities? How does it impact their lives? How does Ma show that she is growing in her ability to approach the world with faith and openness?
Chapters 21-26
Reading Check
1. What does Ba think the secret word written on the paper of happiness might be?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does Minli’s generosity and compassion lead to her meeting the king?
2. What does the king think the “borrowed line” might be, and what does Dragon think it is?
Chapters 27-31
Reading Check
1. On the night that the wind blows very hard, where do Minli and Dragon spend the night?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does Dragon get seriously injured?
2. How does A-Fu trick the Green Tiger into defeating himself?
Paired Resource
- This Chinese folktale shares the story of how an innkeeper’s generosity is rewarded.
- This resource relates to the themes of The Value of Gratitude and The Virtue of Sacrifice.
- What moral lessons is this folktale meant to teach? How is this story similar to Minli’s experience with the king? What other examples of sacrifice and gratitude have there been in the story so far? Do you think that Where the Mountain Meets the Moon offers similar lessons to the “Lord of Cranes” story, or is the novel making different points about gratitude and sacrifice?
Chapters 32-37
Reading Check
1. In the twins’ story about their village’s history, what do the raindrops turn out to be?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. After he gives medicine to Dragon, where does A-Gong send Minli, and why?
2. What gift does Amah give Minli that demonstrates the family’s generous spirit?
Chapters 38-41
Reading Check
1. What makes Never-Ending Mountain different from any other mountain Minli has ever seen?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How did the Old Man of the Moon save the ancestors of Da-Fu and A-Fu?
2. Why is Dragon unable to meet the Old Man of the Moon in person?
Paired Resource
“Practicing Gratitude for Better Health and Well-Being”
- This article from the University of Utah explores how gratitude can be cultivated and the benefits of doing so.
- This resource relates to the theme of The Value of Gratitude.
- What does “gratitude” mean? What are some of the positive effects of gratitude? How can it be developed? What evidence is there that Minli has developed more gratitude during her journey? How do you predict this will impact her when she returns home? Are there any other characters in this novel who seem to have grown in their ability to feel gratitude?
Chapters 42-45
Reading Check
1. What kind of creature greets Minli when she reaches the wall at the end of the rope bridge?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. When Minli sees the word “thankfulness” in the Book of Fortune, what generous decision is she inspired to make?
2. Why does Minli not want to go back to the Old Man of the Moon to ask her question about how to change her life?
Chapters 46-48
Reading Check
1. Who turns out to be Dragon’s mother?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Just before they reach Minli’s village, what does Dragon tell Minli he wants to do with his future?
2. What story is Ba about to tell at the end of the novel, and to whom is he going to tell it?
Recommended Next Reads
When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin
- In this middle-grade fantasy novel, a companion piece to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Pinmei's storytelling grandmother is kidnapped by imperial soldiers, and Pinmei sets out on a quest to find the Luminous Stone That Lights the Night, intending to trade it to the Emperor in return for her grandmother’s freedom.
- Shares themes of The Power of Faith and The Virtue of Sacrifice
- Shares topics of Chinese mythology, storytelling, the hero’s journey, family, friendship, courage, and human connection
- When the Sea Turned to Silver on SuperSummary
Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin
- In this middle-grade fantasy novel, a companion piece to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, runaway Rendi is the only one who notices that the moon has gone missing from the sky. After listening to a storyteller, he realizes that his own story may help solve this mystery.
- Shares theme of The Value of Gratitude
- Shares topics of Chinese mythology, storytelling, family, friendship, courage, and human connection
Reading Questions Answer Key
Chapters 1-4
Reading Check
1. A goldfish (Chapters 2-3)
Short Answer
1. The Jade Dragon must be reunited with one of her children. (Chapter 1)
2. He wants his son to marry into the Imperial family, but the Old Man of the Moon tells him that his son’s destiny is to marry the grocer’s daughter. (Chapter 3)
Chapters 5-9
Reading Check
1. 99 (Chapter 5)
Short Answer
1. Ma gets angry at Ba because she thinks that his stories are to blame for Minli’s leaving. They find and follow some footprints they think belong to Minli, intending to locate her and bring her home. (Chapter 7)
2. She discovers that the water is salty, which surprises her, so she follows the stream as it gets larger and turns into a river. In the river, she discovers a dragon who calls to her for help. (Chapter 8)
Chapters 10-15
Reading Check
1. Magistrate Tiger (Chapter 11)
Short Answer
1. The monkeys tied him up so that he could not steal their peaches or even look at them. (Chapter 10)
2. She traps them by placing a net over a pot of rice. When the monkeys reach through the net and grab handfuls of rice, they cannot get their hands back through the net and refuse to drop the rice because they are so greedy. (Chapter 14)
Chapters 16-20
Reading Check
1. The Market of Green Abundance (Chapter 19)
Short Answer
1. He was not wearing the golden dragon that the buffalo boy believes all kings wear. (Chapter 17)
2. She feeds the goldfish some rice from her own bowl. (Chapter 20)
Chapters 21-26
Reading Check
1. “Faith” (Chapter 25)
Short Answer
1. Minli sees an old man begging for a peach, and she uses her last coin to buy him one. When the man uses the pit to magically grow a tree and Minli sees his dragon bracelet, Minli realizes that he is not an ordinary person, and she follows him to the palace. (Chapters 21-22)
2. The king thinks that it is a line of text on a page torn from the Old Man of the Moon’s Book of Fortune, but Dragon thinks that it is the red string that the Old Man of the Moon gave the lions who guard the city walls. (Chapters 23-24)
Chapters 27-31
Reading Check
1. In a cave (Chapter 27)
Short Answer
1. When he is defending Minli from the Green Tiger, Dragon gets scratched by the tiger. (Chapter 29)
2. She tells the Green Tiger that his estranged son has mocked him and is waiting for him at the bottom of a well. The enraged Green Tiger jumps into the well to fight his own reflection, which he mistakes for his son, and falls to his death. (Chapters 30-31)
Chapters 32-37
Reading Check
1. Pearl-shaped seeds (Chapter 34)
Short Answer
1. He sends her with his grandchildren to go back to the village for more medicine. He wants Minli to go along so that she can get warm and sleep. (Chapter 33)
2. She cuts a piece from each family member’s jacket and uses these pieces to sew a patchwork coat to keep Minli warm on her journey. (Chapter 37)
Chapters 38-41
Reading Check
1. Its size (Chapter 39)
Short Answer
1. He relocated their village so that Magistrate Tiger would not be able to find and destroy it. (Chapter 38)
2. When Minli’s kite string becomes a bridge up to the sky, she and Dragon discover that the bridge is not sturdy enough to hold Dragon’s weight, and Minli must go up the bridge to the Old Man of the Moon alone. (Chapter 41)
Chapters 42-45
Reading Check
1. A rabbit (Chapter 42)
Short Answer
1. She can only ask the Old Man of the Moon one question, and she decides to ask Dragon’s question rather than her own. (Chapter 43)
2. She knows that he will not answer her question, and she no longer feels the need to change her life anyway. She has learned from the examples of people like buffalo boy and the twins, from hearing the story of Wu Kang, and from seeing “thankfulness” written in the Book of Fortune that she should be grateful for the blessings she already has. (Chapter 45)
Chapters 46-48
Reading Check
1. Jade Dragon (Chapter 47)
Short Answer
1. He wants to stay on Fruitless Mountain because he senses that it is his home. (Chapter 46)
2. Ba is about to tell the goldfish man Minli’s story. (Chapter 48)
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