Lifestyle
To learn 'The Truth About Dragons,' go on a quest through this kids' book
![To learn 'The Truth About Dragons,' go on a quest through this kids' book To learn 'The Truth About Dragons,' go on a quest through this kids' book](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3291x1852+0+625/resize/1400/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F95%2F8f%2Fdb649b564ea4b288ec4de2904eb5%2Fthetruthaboutdragons-9781250820587-int-01.jpg)
Hanna Cha / Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
A little boy goes on a quest — into two very different forests — to discover the truth about dragons.
“You must put your favorite cloak around your shoulders and your sturdiest boots upon your feet,” Julie Leung writes in her Caldecott Honor children’s book, The Truth About Dragons.
“Leave on a day when the air is crisp as new paper, the wind is gentle, and the skies are clear.”
In the first forest, full of old, gnarled oak trees, the child evades mischievous hobgoblins, mossy bridges, glowing will-o’-the-wisps, and winding brooks before arriving at a yellow cottage in the middle of a boggy swamp.
There lives a wise woman who tells him the truth about dragons.
“Dragons are fearsome and fire-breathing, my child,” the wise woman says, “with wings like a bat’s and the body of a lizard. Piercing horns grace their reptilian heads.”
And that, for sure, is one truth about dragons. But our hero still has another journey to go on.
![TheTruthAboutDragons_9781250820587_INT_02.jpg](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6600x2700+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F26%2F11%2F88f5438c4427a40baa6d90eb693d%2Fthetruthaboutdragons-9781250820587-int-02.jpg)
Hanna Cha / Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
“The book was inspired by my firstborn son,” explains Julie Leung. “We had debated a lot about which last name to give him. My husband having a very common Americanized name that’s synonymous with a soup company, and me having one that’s always been traditionally a little harder to pronounce.”
Leung was grappling with the idea of her son growing up feeling like he needed to choose between cultures — his mom’s Chinese heritage or his father’s American heritage. So she turned to folklore.
“There’s such different interpretations of the dragon mythology between Eastern and Western cultures,” Leung says, “it’s a perfect metaphor.”
![The Truth About Dragons](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3375x2775+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F13%2F9d%2Ff3d960134e3d831075bead13efe9%2Fthe-truth-about-dragons.jpg)
The Truth About Dragons
Hanna Cha / Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
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Hanna Cha / Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
To depict the two mythologies, Hanna Cha illustrated the book in two completely different styles.
“I decided to use pen nibs for the first half of the book,” says Cha. “I got inspired by a lot of the older folktales and storybooks. And I loved how in those books they use borders to create a separate layer that adds to the story.”
In the first half of the book, the pages are lush and warm. A border of trees and leaves, flowers and mushrooms, frames each page. The wise woman’s cottage is full of rough-hewn wooden furniture and a stone hearth. Dried flowers hang from the ceiling, a cauldron bubbles away over a fire. “Her house smells of cedar chests, sugar cookies, and apple cider,” Leung writes.
Then, midway through the book, after the wise woman gives our hero one truth about dragons — basically that they’re all like Smaug from The Hobbit, sitting on piles of treasure and shooting flames at trespassers — the little boy steps over and out of the border of the first story, and straight into another.
![TheTruthAboutDragons_9781250820587_INT_03.jpg](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6600x2700+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffb%2Fe2%2Fde6da8d14d79b52d6c3352cd55fc%2Fthetruthaboutdragons-9781250820587-int-03.jpg)
Hanna Cha / Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Now the illustrations are airy and cool — greens and blues replace the warm reds and browns of yore. The borders have disappeared. The oak trees have been uprooted by a bamboo forest. The child is guided by nine-tailed foxes, ghostly maidens, and the white rabbit who dwells on the moon.
“For the second half I used sumi ink and calligraphy brushes,” explains Cha. “These brushes are beautiful brushes from Korean folk art. For me, I’m more comfortable doing brushes. That has been most of my work beforehand.”
Instead of a swampy cottage, the second wise woman lives in a palace overlooking a towering waterfall. It smells of jasmine and incense. She drinks chrysanthemum tea in a tiny porcelain bowl. And, of course, she knows another truth about dragons.
“Dragons are majestic creatures of air and fire,” Leung writes. “They rule in the skies and rivers, commanding the rain to fall and the floodwaters to rise.”
Hanna Cha says she gave careful consideration to how she’d draw the two dragons in this story differently. The fire-breathing Western dragon is deep red — on the page where you meet it, the border is made out of dented armor and bits of skeletons, evidence of its destructive powers. The god-like Eastern dragon is almost ethereal — it moves through the air like swirls of light blue liquid.
“I also really focused on a lot of the dynamic movements of how the dragons would move,” says Cha. “For the blue dragon, I imagined it kind of twisting and turning, serpent-like… this very majestic movement… And for the red dragon, I made sure to create this weight that is almost immovable, almost indestructible.”
![TheTruthAboutDragons_9781250820587_INT_04.jpg](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6600x2700+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F2b%2F1a%2F6df97f614e3da24f6dcba9b60e39%2Fthetruthaboutdragons-9781250820587-int-04.jpg)
Hanna Cha / Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Most people think they have to choose between the two dragons — red or blue, fearsome or holy, Eastern or Western mythologies. But at the end of his quest, our hero learns the real truth about dragons.
“I think a lot about the ways that we describe mixed or blended or half. There’s a lot of terminology we use when we talk about kids who are coming from different cultural and racial backgrounds,” says author Julie Leung. “And I want the idea of my kid’s future feeling like it is doubled, it is enriched, it is limitless.”
Or, as the omniscient narrator (actually his mother), tells the little boy, “Inside your heart is where the two forests meet. Both journeys are yours to take. Both worlds are yours to discover.”
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Lifestyle
Nelly Furtado Says Daughter Roasted Her For Using Auto-Tune on New Album
![Nelly Furtado Says Daughter Roasted Her For Using Auto-Tune on New Album Nelly Furtado Says Daughter Roasted Her For Using Auto-Tune on New Album](https://imagez.tmz.com/image/91/16by9/2024/07/27/9146aca13b85469fbca579b789a73c8f_xl.jpg)
Nelly Furtado says her daughter saved her upcoming album with some blunt advice … calling her out for thinking auto-tune sounds cool.
The singer-songwriter spoke with NME all about her upcoming album “7” … and, she admits she got a little crazy when it came to auto-tune before her daughter shut her down.
Furtado says her Nevis, 20, told her auto-tune’s not cool, full stop … so, it shouldn’t come anywhere near her new record.
On top of that … NF says Nevis reminded her people love her music because it has so many dimensions to it — so she knew she had to dig deeper instead of relying on tech to get the job done
It’s a bit shocking Nelly considered using auto-tune at all … ’cause she was not a fan of the tech earlier in her career. She gave an interview back in 2004 where she said she never uses the tech. Check out the clip too — she seems pretty uncertain why anyone would.
BTW … Nevis is also in the music industry and she helped her mom on the album — so her advice was coming from both a daughter and a colleague.
Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.
As for the album itself — her first since her 2017 record “The Ride” — Nelly says she hadn’t stepped foot in a recording studio in three years … but, she felt it was time to create again.
The album’s out September 20 … no auto-tune included!
Lifestyle
Simone Biles reminds us: You never know what Olympic athletes are going through
![Simone Biles reminds us: You never know what Olympic athletes are going through Simone Biles reminds us: You never know what Olympic athletes are going through](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4918x2765+0+121/resize/1400/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fdf%2F92%2F9d685f6d4682ba88666eb2b28610%2Fgettyimages-1332080751.jpg)
Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history. But she withdrew from the last summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, a journey that is chronicled in the new Netflix series Simone Biles Rising.
Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images
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Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images
The Netflix series Simone Biles Rising is, on the one hand, exactly what you would expect: a documenting of Biles’ remarkable career, with an emphasis on her unexpected withdrawal from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (which were delayed until 2021) and her preparation for the Paris Olympics, which are under way.
Much of the story is well-known, particularly her utter dominance of her sport in the last decade or so. And it’s not the first time anyone has tried to shed light on the mental health vulnerabilities of elite athletes, even at the Olympics: That’s also the topic of the HBO film The Weight of Gold (which I highly recommend). What makes this series timely is that it works as something of an education, or at least a reminder, for audiences just as the Olympics start. The message: We don’t know these athletes.
![Biles has a](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3675x2067+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/png/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F76%2Faa%2Fc50c45064382b6f0a63f6c7deead%2Fsimone-biles-rising-s1-e1-00-24-02-18-png-simone-biles-rising-s1-e1-00-24-02-18.png)
Biles has a “forbidden Olympic closet” where she keeps all of her items from Tokyo.
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Netflix
When Biles dropped out of most of the competition in Tokyo, some things were known. She talked about having “the twisties,” a condition familiar to gymnasts in which the athlete loses the ability to know and control where they are in the air. But a lot of commentators and social media jerks, as you see in the series, blew off that explanation and declared she should have just pushed through, that she just quit, and that a strong person would have continued on no matter what.
What many people featured in the series make clear is that when the twisties hit an athlete, the risk is not just that you’ll be embarrassed or lose. As 1992 Olympic medalist Betty Okino says — with a little reluctance, because she doesn’t want to scare young gymnasts — you can die. If you can’t land on your feet and you instead land on your head, you can die. If you’ve ever seen baseball players struggle with the yips and keep throwing wildly no matter how many therapies they have attempted, or if you idolize athletes who play hurt in general, think about whether they’d keep doing it if every errant throw was potentially life-threatening.
Biles is also quite open about the fact that the contemptuous and vicious way commentators like Jason Whitlock spoke about her (they still do!) took a toll. She acknowledges at one point that it was a good idea for her to turn off Instagram comments, and that she’s removed Twitter (now X) from her phone a couple of times when she needs to.
![Timely Naomi Osaka Docuseries Explores The Inner Emotional World Of A Champion](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/07/15/naomiosaka_limitedseries_episode2_00_28_58_00-copy_sq-36ac7593e703e6692125b979845c10c92abc5069.jpg?s=100&c=100&f=jpeg)
![Naomi Osaka Reveals Mental Health Struggles — And Other Athletes Rally Around Her](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/06/01/gettyimages-1233181818_sq-b0e97abcc51a3ad9d57a329d60e26172eec93212.jpg?s=100&c=100&f=jpeg)
But perhaps the most useful thing she does in the series is create context for her comeback. Yes, you get to see how she showed up in competition again in 2023 and performed very, very well, at 26 – an age when she says she thought she’d be retired. But while the timing of Olympic competition can be brutal — if you miss your moment, you don’t get another one for years — it also means that if you need to recover, you have the time. After Tokyo in 2021, Biles and her coach say she didn’t really get underway in the gym again for about a year and a half. The coach says that the only real cure for the twisties is to take time off and try to work on your general well-being, including your mental health. And so that’s what she did.
![Simone Biles](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3782x2127+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/png/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F38%2F89%2F9bbdd8c44756b299e717fd549786%2Fsimone-biles-rising-s1-e1-00-03-22-03-png-simone-biles-rising-s1-e1-00-03-22-03.png)
Simone Biles is returning to the Olympics in 2024 — on her own terms.
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Netflix
She went to therapy; in fact, she convinced her husband, NFL player Jonathan Owens, to go to a sports psychologist, too, and he speaks about how useful it’s been in his own career. She spent time processing trauma in her life, including the fact that she was one of many gymnasts who came forward to acknowledge sexual abuse by Team USA doctor Larry Nassar, part of a very long story that publicly unfolded mostly between her 2016 and 2021 Olympic appearances. And she talks about the fact that when she did come back to the gym, it was not with a glorious fanfare and a delighted spring in her step. She was scared and discouraged. Before competing at the 2023 World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, she says this: “Mostly, I’m trying not to die.”
One possible lesson to take away from the series — perhaps the simplest one — is “Simone Biles is awesome; look how she fought to come back.” And that certainly appears to be true. But the other lesson is a bit more complicated: Athletes are just people. They don’t follow neat paths, necessarily. For Biles, coming back took time. She was sometimes ambivalent. The ultimate outcome is not assured. Handling the kind of negativity she faces is something she’s working on.
Elite athletes (including super-elite athletes, which is the only phrase that really captures Biles’ place in her sport) have limits. Top men’s tennis player Jannik Sinner isn’t playing in the Olympics because of tonsillitis, and mental health is just capable of interrupting a competition. Tennis phenom Naomi Osaka has faced criticism similar to what’s been directed at Biles when she’s taken care of her own health by taking a step back. (Notably, they are both women of color; there is some smart discussion of the role of race in the Biles film, too.)
So whether they meet their goals or not, much of what Olympians feel and experience is unknowable unless and until they choose to explain it. It may look like just grit and triumph or grit and disappointment, but in fact, it’s more impressive to remember that they’re complicated people with a lot going on, even when they’re not performing.
This piece also appeared in NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don’t miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what’s making us happy.
Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
![Simone Biles' Olympic Sponsors Praise Her For Putting Mental Health First](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/07/29/ap21209227085893_sq-e75b57db28c0151d7b89e6bea418d4a29399e9eb.jpg?s=100&c=100&f=jpeg)
Lifestyle
Channing Tatum Performs with 'Magic Mike Live' Dancers at Bachelor Party
![Channing Tatum Performs with 'Magic Mike Live' Dancers at Bachelor Party Channing Tatum Performs with 'Magic Mike Live' Dancers at Bachelor Party](https://imagez.tmz.com/image/3f/16by9/2024/07/27/3fc328eebbc4459a8c8d0391915d9b9a_xl.jpg)
Channing Tatum‘s already finished off his ‘Last Dance’ as Magic Mike in last year’s trilogy-completer … but, every dancer loves an encore — and CT just gave his in Las Vegas.
The actor took the SAHARA Las Vegas stage Friday night where “Magic Mike Lives” gets fans hot and bothered five days a week in Sin City … joining the crew for their encore.
Check out the clip … there are a ton of sweaty, shirtless men onstage — having a heck of a good time, bouncing around and shaking it for the dudes and ladies in the crowd.
Tatum — keeping his shirt on, sorry to disappoint — comes from the back of the stage to the front … hat pulled over his eyes, and hiding his identity for a few moments.
But, the audience quickly realizes which celeb b-boy’s hiding under the cap … with fans screaming and pointing at Channing’s arrival onstage — and, while he keeps the shirt and pants on — his gyrating still draws excited screams.
Channing created and co-directs ‘MML’ — a live striptease performance boasting some of the best male dancers around — with choreographer Alison Faulk based on the ‘Magic Mike’ series.
Faulk also hit the stage with all her guys for celebrity stylist Andrew Mukamal‘s joint bachelor party with his future husband Connor Bailey.
Like we said, Magic Mike’s supposedly made his last dance on the silver screen … but, looks like Channing’s ready to bust a move at the drop of a hat.
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