Mulan, Woman Warrior: An Easy-to-Read Story in Simplified Chinese and Pinyin, 240 Word Vocabulary

The story of Mulan, the young girl who joins the army to save her family and her country, is at least 1500 years old. Over the centuries, it has inspired dozens of poems, plays, novels, songs, and more recently, graphic novels, TV shows and films. The details of the story vary, but the core is always the same: a young girl living with her family in a small Chinese village learns that the army requires each family to contribute one man to fight invaders from the North. To save her elderly father she disguises herself as a young man and enlists in the army; she excels at fighting, strategy and leadership and rises through the ranks; the war ends successfully, she is recognized as a hero and is offered rewards by the Emperor; she declines the rewards and humbly chooses to return to her family and take up the traditional life of a village woman.