Jack W.

10 years ago

After reading Lloyd Alexander’s early book the remarkable journey of Prince Jen, I found that the story itself was very interesting, so as a reader, let me give a brief summary about the book. In the beginning, Young Lord Prince – our main character Jen was given a mission to seek the way to rule well from the king of T’ien-Kuo, Yuan-Ming. To please the wise ruler, Jen had taken six valuable gifts to bring with him and of course, brought his loyal servant Mafoo. With the six items – a sword, a kite, a bowl, a saddle, a paint box and a flute, Prince Jen started toward the kingdom of T’ien-Kuo with Mafoo and General Li Kwang among his soldiers to protect the future wise ruling king of Tang....... From my description, sure you have got a brief idea about the story, but now just to let you learn more about the book, you should hear some of my opinions to have a clearer picture of the book. To summarize my overall opinions about this novel, I would say that it was pretty fun to read, there were some interesting cultural universals about early China that was explored in different ways. From the passages in the book, you could get a general idea about the government, the education and the fundamentals of early China. Just to support my opinions, I liked this book because it explained things about early China. I could tell that the author put in a lot of effort into learning Chinese cultures. He clearly examined the bureaucracy had on early China’s devolvement. Also, he described the basics of Chinese, he knew that Chinese wore cotton cloth and lived in wooden house, and he talked about the Chinese diet of fish and rice. Last of all, he even mentioned the fact that Chinese was educated to respect their parents and care for their children. I could claim that the remarkable journey of Prince Jen was a great book because it thoroughly explained early China’s cultural universals.

Bryce R

11 years ago

The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen is about a young lord prince whose name is Jen. One day, when Jen was practicing archery in the courtyard he caught a glimpse of an old fellow who looked like his teacher, Master Hu. He ran into the palace and the Master was talking to the Prince's father, the king. They talked about an adventure to go and look for The Kingdom of T'ien-Kuo. Before embarking on the journey Prince Jen had to get six gifts to give to Yuan-ming. The six gifts were: a saddle, a sword, a paint box, a bowl, a kite, and a flute. Whlie traveling to the kingdom Jen stumbles into multiple misfortunes, including bandits and robbers. I personally didn't enjoy the book because there was a lot of fictional content, including an eagle that could talk, a tiger that could talk, and a girl that could fly, etc. Also most of the words and names were hard to pronounce.

Lorenzo C

11 years ago

SUMMARY: In the beginning, a young prince named Jen is given six objects to commence his lengendary journey. His flute girl and his master accompany him in order to find the mystical court of T'ien Kuo. Unfortunately, they bump into many obstacles. Will they accomplish their journey? Or will they be known as failures? Find out in this thrilling, detailed book. OPINIONS: This story was great. It had drama, suspense, comedy, and an unforgettable journey. My favorite part of this novel had to be the descriptions. It added drama to the story, and made you want to know more. Descriptions were rich especially when Natha and Prince Jen were in combat. Overall, this story was great and I recommend it to any interested reader.

Ben L.

11 years ago

The remarkable journey of prince Jen had many twists and turns, which made the story very interesting. Prince Jen was sent on a journey to the legendary kingdom of Tien kuo. With him, he carried 6 items as gifts for Yuan Ming, items that seemed to have no value but later thought to be priceless. Along his journey, Jen meets many people who offer their hospitality and accompany him, but others had caused unimaginable trouble. I thought the book was great but some of the characters were confusing. In the book, there were many characters who had such similar names that it was hard to tell who was who and who did what. Overall, it is a must read book filled with amazing action and adventure.

Ben L.

11 years ago

The remarkable journey of prince Jen had many twists and turns, which made the story very interesting. Prince Jen was sent on a journey to the legendary kingdom of Tien kuo. With him, he carried 6 items as gifts for Yuan Ming, items that seemed to have no value but later thought to be priceless. Along his journey, Jen meets many people who offer their hospitality and accompany him, but others had caused unimaginable trouble. I thought the book was great but some of the characters were confusing. In the book, there were many characters who had such similar names that it was hard to tell who was who and who did what. Overall, it is a must read book filled with amazing action and adventure.

Annie P.

11 years ago

In this book, Prince Jen goes on a journey to the other city. He meets many troubles during his journey. For example, he almost die in the river, and falls in the mud, and meets bandits... Can he finish his journey successfully? I think this book was really interesting but has some defects. First of all, I enjoyed this book because it has many fictional details such as a magical flute, men turn into rocks, and a magic sword, and so on. But I don't think it's helpful to understand Chinese culture. There are not many cultural contents in this book, the main story of this book is the journey of Prince Jen. However it was good to enjoy and fun. I recommend this book who wants to read about Chinese fantasy, not to learn their culture.

Ben L

11 years ago

In the remarkable journey of prince Jen, had many twists and turns which made the book even more exciting. In the story, Jen goes on an amazing journey to the legendary kingdon of Tien kuo. With him, he carried six items to be gifts to Yuan Ming. Along his journey he meets many people who offer him their hospitality, accompany him on the way, while others caused unimaginable trouble. I thought the book was great as it had lots of interesting description but the character were often confusing. The book had many characters that had very similar names which made it harder to know which character did what and remember what they were like. Other than that, I thought the storyline was a must read and the author did a great job.

Wendy F.

11 years ago

The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen is an enjoyable book written by Lloyd Alexander. Jen, a Prince from the Tang dynasty of China, is on a journey to seek advice from Yuan-Ming, the ruler of this magnificent kingdom named Tien-Kuo. To prove himself a worthy person to Yuan-Ming, he took six priceless items , a saddle, a sword, a paint box, a bowl, a kite, and a flute, as gift to Yuan-Ming. Along with the help of Mafoo, his faithful servant, and an adventurous girl named Voyaging Moon, Jen sets out on a disastrous journey full of bandits and countless mountains to climb. I think that this novel was interesting to read, it contains a lot of action and description; however it is a very disorganized book. Primarily, I specifically do not like historical fiction books that has an unreasonable plot. The Remarkable journey of Prince Jen was perplexing from the start as the plot explained about a series of actions that are very unrealistic for the setting that it occurs in. The storyline also contains much information and has many twists and turns along the way that confused me. Lastly, a lot of the words in the book are weird when read, it seems like as if the author translated part of the book from Chinese to English, which didn’t make any sense.

Ryan M.

11 years ago

The summary of the story is Jen going on a epic adventure to find the kingdom of T'ien-kuo. He got a couple of gifts: a saddle, a sword, a paint box, a bowl, a kite and a flute. Right after he went on the adventure, there was trouble waiting for him. While Jen is trying to reach T'ien-kuo, his enemy Natha is trying to have his head. I really enjoyed the book because it builds suspense. Also the ending really surprised me. I dislike the names. It makes the book hard to follow. It's hard to distinguish the difference of the character. I like the flow of the reading and the ton of action happening left and right.