The painting reveals a vivid picture of daily life in Beijing in the book by Marian Cannon Schlesinger. [Photo provided to China Daily]

"With all this material and a vivid memory of a unique experience, I decided to write and illustrate San Bao, the story of a small village boy who goes to the big city, Peking, and all the adventures that befall him," Schlesinger continues in her introduction to the Chinese book.

San Bao, the novel's protagonist, is a boy from a nearby village. He comes to Beijing on a donkey with his father to sell food but gets lost halfway. Then he meets Xiao Qing, a boy from the city, and together they enjoy dough figurines, watching people walking on stilts and others dancing with swords at a fair. Finally, San Bao finds his father and returns to their village, with a dragonlike kite for his friends.

Schlesinger made more than 40 illustrations for San Bao and his adventures in olden-day Beijing.

In the 1940s, she wrote other children's books.

Zhao Wuping, vice-president of Shanghai Translation Publishing House, discovered the English book by accident last year, when he met Holly Fairbank, a niece of Schlesinger, in New York.

At the time, Holly Fairbank had mentioned the book to Zhao, who then translated it into Chinese.

"Unlike native Chinese, Marian observes local culture and customs carefully, which are beyond her original experience. Her artistic paintings and poetic language make old Beijing come to life," Zhao says of San Bao and His Adventures in Peking.