The Chinese Year of the Monkey begins this week, and so does the Mongolian Tsaagan Sar festival celebrating the Year of the Fire Monkey. To me, monkeys always seem playful and mischievous. So perhaps this is an auspicious year for an author who has always gone the traditional route with her children's books to take things into her own monkey-hands (or, more accurately, tiger-paws since I was born in the Year of the Tiger) and publish a mischievous little trilogy of novellas for older readers about Genghis Khan. For those who have heard the name but know little else, Genghis (or Temujin, his boyhood name) came from humble beginnings in the 12th century to unite the 'people who live in felt tents' under a single banner. With his infamous Mongol hordes, he then went on to conquer much of Asia and Europe, building an empire four times the size of Alexander the Great's. Rather than take the usual epic historical route chronicling the Khan's conquests, my Legend of ...
