What are wandering plots? These are stories that travel from century to century, from one country to another, because they tell about the most important things in life. What if we collect these stories and intertwine them, insert them like little Chinese boxes into one another? Grace Lin, a Chinese-American writer, did just that. And it turned out to be a fascinating story, a real road movie. The heroine of the book, Minli, lives in a poor family: Minli’s mother is always worried about tomorrow and complains about fate, and the girl’s father turns every evening into a holiday, telling wonderful tales about the Elder of the Moon and the Jade Dragon. Kind and sympathetic Minli (by the way, her name means “smart”) desperately wants to help her family and spends half of her wealth - a whole coin - to buy a goldfish, which is supposed (of course!) to bring good luck. But the goldfish did not bring good luck to the family: the mother ridiculed Minli, and the girl decided to go in search of that very Elder of the Moon from the fairy tales told by her father. Everyone who meets the brave Minli on her difficult path is the fish seller, the dragon, the prince, the Green Tiger and even the Elder of the Moon himself - they are all, in fact, pieces of the most difficult, but fantastically beautiful puzzle. Together with the main character, the reader learns that not a single action in life remains without consequences - even the most distant ones. And there is no surer way to become happy than to live by caring for others. For middle school age.