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
Peng (mythology) Peng (mythology) Peng () or Dapeng (大鵬) is a giant bird that transforms from a Kun () giant fish in Chinese mythology. In comparative mythology of giant creatures, Peng is likened to the Roc or Garuda and Kun to the Leviathan. The Chinese logograms for "peng" and "kun" exemplify common radical-phonetic characters. "Peng" (鵬) combines the "bird radical" (鳥) with a "peng" (朋 "friend") phonetic, and "kun" combines the "fish radical" (魚) with a "kun" (昆 "progeny; insect") phonetic. Both the mythic Chinese "Peng" and "Kun" names involve word play. "Peng" () was anciently a variant Chinese character for "feng"