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Gung Hay Fat Choi! Xin Nian Kuai Le! Happy Year of the Sheep/Ram/Goat!

So how are you celebrating? Here are some of my favourite children’s books for Chinese New Year:

The Year of … Continue reading ... →

The Great Race: The Story of the Chinese Zodiac
written by Dawn Casey, illustrated by Anne Wilson
(Barefoot Books, … Continue reading ... →

The Year of the Snake slithers in this weekend but have no fear! Ancient Chinese wisdom says a snake in the house is actually a good omen because it means that your family will not starve. The sixth sign of the Chinese Zodiac, the snake represents wisdom, intelligence and self-control. The snake also represents the ability to strike at will, quickly and powerfully. The Year of Snake promises to be a time of steady progress and attention to detail. Focus and discipline will be necessary for all of us to achieve what we set out to create.

Chinese New Year is the longest and most important festival in the Chinese calendar and celebrations take place around the world . What better way to get into the spirit by reading some Chinese New Year children’s books! Here are a few books we’ve blogged about that we would definitely recommend:

Tales from the Chinese Zodiac series by Oliver Chin,

The Great Race / The Story of the Chinese Zodiac by Dawn Casey, illustrated by Anne Wilson;

The Day the Dragon Danced by Kay Haugaard, illustrated by Carolyn Reed Barritt

Fang Fang’s Chinese New Year by Sally Rippin

The Race for the Chinese Zodiac by Gabrielle Wang, illustrated by Sally Heinrich

Year of the Dog and Year of the Rat by one of my favorite authors Grace Lin. Be sure to visit Grace’s blog t0 read about her plans for bringing in the New Year with  her daughter Rain Dragon and to get some New Year crafts suggestions.

My Mom Is a Dragon and My Dad is a Boar and Hiss! Pop! Boom! by Tricia Morissey

Happy, Happy Chinese New Year! written and illustrated by Demi. Read our interview with Demi here and see our gallery of her stunning illustration work here.

And here’s a special kidlit New Year celebration  for those of you who live in San Jose, CA, USA.  Children’s author Oliver Chin will be reading from his new book The Year of the Snake: Tales from the Chinese Zodiac, on Feb. 19th at the Joyce Ellington Branch library. Details here.

Following our library’s recent refurbishment, I was excited to find several bilingual picture-books in the newly-revamped children’s section… I borrowed two and we will definitely be going back for more!

Yeh-Hsien: A Chinese Cinderella, retold by Dawn Casey and illustrated by Richard Holland, with a French translation by Annie Arnold (Mantra Lingua, 2006) is familiar but different – there’s no fairy godmother, instead Yeh-Hsien befriends a fish: “she nourished her fish with food and with love, and soon he grew to enormous size.” However, the wicked stepmother kills the fish, cooks it and eats it (this detail gives the story the frisson of horror that is sometimes missing from modern fairy-tale retellings…). The magic fish bones that are left allow Yeh-Hsien to make wishes come true – soon she has enough to eat; and then she is able to conjure up beautiful clothes to go to the Spring Festival… It’s great to have a feisty Cinderella, who has to think and do for herself – and who runs away from the party because her nightmarish step-mother frightens her, not because she forgot the time…

Grandma’s Saturday Soup by Sally Fraser and illustrated by Derek Brazell with a Cantonese translation by Sylvia Denham (Mantra Lingua, 2005) is a delightful book – Mimi takes young readers/listeners through her week during a British winter. Everything reminds her of some ingredient in the soup she will be having at Grandma’s house on Saturday (clouds like dumplings, shoots of new growth through the snow like spring onions); and everything also contrasts with the stories Grandma tells of life in Jamaica –

“The sun shines every day. The sun is warm on your skin and you only need to wear your shorts and a T-shirt.”
Warm every day? Shorts and a T-shirt? I can’t believe that!

And the illustrations bring it alive too, alternating chilly winter scenes with glorious, tropical weather; playing in the snow with playing in the sand. This is a lovely book about a child learning about her cultural heritage from a beloved grandmother.

Mantra Lingua offer a wide range of bilingual picture-books in over 40 languages. I love the cultural mix they can create – and I would suggest that bilingual books aren’t just for those who are growing up with both the featured languages. It doesn’t matter in our family, for example, that we are only really reading the English – the stories somehow have an added dimension just by there being the parallel text there – minds are opened, even if it’s simply via the recognition of different codes of punctuation!