The Stonecutter

The stonecutter tale exists in many traditions — there are Japanese versions, Chinese versions, even a William Steig retelling — but Demi’s 1995 picture book is the one to give a child for whom this is the first time meeting the story. It is also the most explicitly Daoist of the picture books on the Library list, in the way that Tao Te Ching chapter 33 is Daoist: it is about the trap of wanting to be something other than what you are.

The setup is the structure: a stonecutter, working in the heat, sees a prince’s procession and wishes to be a prince. He becomes a prince. The sun is hotter and more powerful than any prince, and he wishes to be the sun. He becomes the sun. A cloud blocks his light; he becomes the cloud. The wind moves the cloud; he becomes the wind. The mountain stands unmoved by the wind; he becomes the mountain. And then someone arrives at the foot of the mountain to chip away at it — a stonecutter.

The text is short. The art does the carrying. Demi uses her usual gold-leaf backgrounds and the round-faced, finely-bordered figures she also uses in Buddha and The Empty Pot. Each transformation gets its own spread, and the visual recurrence — the stonecutter’s face is recognizable in each form he takes — is the small detail that holds the story together.

Pairs naturally with The Empty Pot, also by Demi, also on this list, which delivers a different Daoist-adjacent virtue (honesty rather than contentment) in the same visual register. Households reading Tao Te Ching aloud to a child — yes, it happens — will find this picture book a useful companion piece, particularly for the chapters on wuwei (effortless action) and the futility of striving.

The Crown 1995 edition is the standard. Various paperback reissues exist; all use the same plates.