Ox-Cart Man Novel Units® Teacher Guide Novel Study

Rereading Donald Hall’s Beautiful Children’s Book in a Time of Turmoil

Ox-cart

U Than Win, 63, makes traditional ox carts. They contain 14 sleek spokes of teak, hubs of hard rosewood, and rims of hand-forged iron. He is one of the last cartwrights employed in his village of Shwe Pan Kone, a rice-growing community near the banks of the Irrawaddy River in northern Myanmar. Each of his carts is composed of 140 separate parts: a jigsaw of carefully selected lumber, leather strapping, and some iron braces. “As long as farmers have been here, carts have been here. That’s how it’