Of Nightingales That Weep Award from the Children's Literature Association as the best English-language children's book that did not win a major award when it was originally published twenty years earlier. The award is named after the mythical bird phoenix, which is reborn from its ashes, to suggest the book's rise from obscurity. Set during the Genpei War, the two rival Japanese clans, the Genji and Heike, are constantly battling for the support of the Senior Cloistered Emperor and the power to rule Japan. Takiko is a beautiful girl who can talentedly play the koto, a thirteen-stringed instrument. She is only eleven years old
Birds in Chinese mythology Birds in Chinese mythology Birds in Chinese mythology and legend are of numerous types and very important in this regard. Some of them are obviously based on real birds, other ones obviously not, and some in-between. The Crane is an example of a real type of bird with mythological enhancements. Cranes are linked with immortality, and may be transformed "xian" immortals, or ferry an immortal upon their back. The Vermilion Bird is iconic of the south. Sometimes confused with the Fenghuang, the vermilion bird of the south is associated with fire. The Peng was a gigantic bird phase of the