The Immortal Peaches - Jeff Pepper

Once again the Monkey King's unlimited ambitions and uncontrolled appetites land him in deep trouble. He is given a job in heaven taking care of the Emperor's Garden of Immortal Peaches, but he can't stop himself from eating all the peaches. He impersonates a great Immortal and crashes a party in Heaven, stealing the guests' food and drink and barely escaping to his loyal troop of monkeys back on Earth. And in the end, he battles an entire army of Immortals and men, and discovers that even calling himself the Great Sage Equal to Heaven does not make him equal to everyone in Heaven.

This is the 3rd book in the best-selling Journey to the West series of stories for students learning to read Chinese. It is based on the events in Chapters 5 through 7 of the epic 16th century novel of the same name by Wu Chen'en. That novel was inspired by an actual journey by the Buddhist monk Tangseng (formerly called Xuanzang), who traveled from Chang'an westward to India in 629 A.D. and returned seventeen years later with priceless knowledge and spiritual texts. Over the course of the book Tangseng and his companions face the 81 tribulations that Tangseng had to endure to attain Buddhahood.

The first 3 books in the Journey to the West series have used a total of about 600 different Chinese words, but only 517 are used in this book. All new words are defined on the page where they are first used. The book uses Simplified Chinese characters and includes pinyin, an English translation, and a full glossary. A free audiobook is available on YouTube's Imagin8 Press channel and on www.imagin8press.com.