This bilingual children's book presents a charming collection of folktales and fables on the timeless theme of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. All of these stories are very popular in China, retold and adapted here to appeal to young readers and children all around the world. Each story explores a moral dilemma that young readers can easily understand, and provides a gentle lesson that they will discover for themselves.

The twelve stories in this book include:

• "How a Monkey Was Doomed by His Own Pride" A monkey is rescued by a dolphin after a shipwreck but is dumped back into the sea when his pretense of being rich and famous is discovered.
• "What Kind of Music Do Cows Appreciate?" A master musician does not blame the cows when they don't like his music, but instead learns to create music that the cows will appreciate.
• How Do You Make Dragons Come to Life?" An artist obeys the emperor's command to add eyes to his painted dragons, but when the dragons come to life and fly away, it tuns out this was not what the emperor wanted after all.
• And nine other stories!