It's a proverb that everyone who speaks Chinese knows. When the old man on the frontier lost his horse, who knows if it wasn't a good thing? Ed Young has made it into a picture book which has a beautifully ancient Chinese feeling. It even has the text of the classical story reprinted in the front of the book.

I admit it's a mere quibble, but I only wish that Ed Young had left the old man with his rather generic traditional name. Sai means a border in classical Chinese, and Weng means an old man, so Sai Weng is the Old Man on the Frontier. Sai as a given name distracted me when I read the book. ( )

This is an updated version of the Chinese/Mongolian folktale. It touches on the extraordinary reversals of fortune to a horse's trusting owner. The main point of the book is to portray the ever-changing fortunes of life.

I like the story's approach to text. For example, I found the language to be simple. There were also frequently repetitive lines. This made an unpredictable story just a little bit predictable.

I also really enjoyed the illustrations. They were simple without being simple. For example while going through the book, at times I felt I was looking at a Chinese watercolor. The colors chosen were simple and added a cool atmosphere . ( )

Great book comes with puppet to interact with. Great to read aloud or have students red on their own

A wonderful proverb which begins with a wise man, Sai and his horse. When things go wrong Sai says "it might not be such a bad thing". The moral is 'to trust in the ever changing fortunes of life'. ( )