How to use this Page

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.

Just released today it’s the book trailer to Grace Lin‘s newest novel Starry River of the Sky! Already receiving rave reviews, Starry River of the Sky is the companion book to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon which was awarded the prestigious Newbery Honor Award in 2010. Starry River of the Sky officially launches October 2nd but for those of you that just can’t wait to get a copy it is already available on Amazon or, if you reside near Cambridge, MA, you can attend the  booklaunch this Sunday, September 30th and get a signed copy! Be sure to visit Grace’s blog on October 2nd and join in the online launch party! Grace will also be going on a short, 3 stop book tour in October to promote the book. Why such a short tour? Not only is Grace celebrating the launch of her new book, she and her husband just celebrated the birth of her first child, a daughter, a mere 4 months ago! Congratulations Grace!

NB: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon was one of the books we selected to be included in our 2010 Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set.  Each year we send carefully chosen books to particular schools and libraries in various parts of the world. The books chosen seek to provide “multicultural” or “trans-cultural” stories that promote awareness of, knowledge about, and positive acceptance of “the other” in ways children can learn and enjoy. We are convinced of the crucial role of literacy and reading in an education that fosters understanding and empathy. To learn more about our Outreach program click here and to read our recent announcement of the 2012 book set click here.

Author Ting-Xing Ye’s mother used to say, “It’s typical! Three Monks, no water!”  whenever she or her brothers and sisters tried to get out of doing something.  Three Monks, No Water (Annick Press, 1997)is the story behind that enigmatic expression – and since reading it, I can see it becoming a useful phrase in our home!

A young Buddhist monk lived alone at the top of a mountain.  Every day he had to fetch water from the foot of the mountain, using a yoke and two buckets.  That provided him with enough water for his personal needs and to water his small vegetable garden.  One day, he was joined by an older monk.  Their attempts to bring water up the mountain together, stringing a single bucket on a pole carried between them, were not very successful; and each felt it was the other’s task to fetch more water, so neither went.  The vegetables in the garden began to die.  Then a third monk arrived, and the situation worsened.  As each monk refused to give way, or compromise his stance in any way, the outlook became bleaker, and certainly none of them was composed enough to meditate or pray.  Then one day, disaster struck… Would they be able to let go of their antagonism and work together to put things right?

Three Monks, No Water is just the kind of fable that will appeal to young children with a strong sense of right and wrong.  The narrative certainly makes no excuses for the monks’ unreasonable behaviour, but leaves plenty of scope for young listeners to react.  Illustrator Harvey Chan’s background of acrylic on gessoed board gives the illustrations an interesting texture for the colored pencil drawings in soft, muted colors; and I love the monks’ facial expressions.  And on every page, like a heavy watermark, a line of calligraphy conveys the expression of the title.  Plus there’s a specially designed seal inside the front and back cover, with a short explanatory note, and together these add a nice extra touch.

This is a great story for conveying the importance of dialogue and reciprocity, giving as well as expecting and taking – and it can be applied to a directly parallel scenario of three individuals, or on a global level, or anywhere in between…

Ed Young, author-illustrator, text as told to Libby Koponen,
The House Baba Built: An Artist’s Childhood in China
Little, Brown and Company, 2011.

Age 4-8 and up

Born in 1931 the fourth of five siblings, Ed Young spent the years of the great depression, Japanese occupation, and World War II in a magnificent environment thanks to his father’s building skills and negotiating acumen. The esteemed Young, a senior talent in the world of children’s literature, celebrates his baba’s loving care and his extended family’s safe passage through terrible times in this collage-illustrated memoir.

In exchange for building the house on a Shanghai property he couldn’t afford to buy (a safe suburb of embassy housing), Baba secured use of the home for 20 years. He designed a substantial two-story edifice with many outdoor spaces and even a swimming pool. (Empty most of the time, the pool was used for riding bikes.) Young’s large-format book with several fold-out pages incorporates many old family photographs, sketches of siblings and relatives, and detailed diagrams of the house that Baba built. At the close of the story, double foldout pages display a layout sketch of both floors of the house, with tiny images of people pasted in the various rooms. Thirteen rooms are depicted, plus outdoor decks and a rooftop playground.

Koponen shapes Young’s words into a lyrical account of family life, repeating the phrase “the house that Baba built” to poetic effect. Text is interspersed scrapbook-style amongst cutouts of Young’s sketches–household members on a see-saw, roller-skating on the rooftop, dancing in the large ground floor living room. Baba, who had received a graduate degree from the University of Michigan in 1917, was cultured and somewhat westernized, but like everyone in Shanghai, the family suffered food shortages and overcrowded conditions for many years. Bombs fell nearby towards the end, but the house withstood the attacks, thanks to Baba’s sturdy construction.

Back matter includes the location of the house on a contemporary map of Shanghai, a family time line from 1915-1947, and an author’s note describing his 1990 visit to the house and how this book came into being. A fascinating window into Shanghai history, Young’s heartfelt tribute to his baba will endear children yet again to his stunning visual imagery and, this time, to his personal story as well.

Charlotte Richardson
November 2011

Sun Youjun, translated by Lily L. Shi,
The Adventures of a Little Rag Doll
Better Link Press, 2011.

Ages 8-10

“Once there was Little Butou. Little Butou was a tiny rag doll. Now I will tell you about his adventures, that is, his encounters with many interesting and exciting people and situations…” So begins The Adventures of a Little Rag Doll, originally published in 1961 in China, the first book by the prolific and beloved Hans Christian Andersen nominee, Sun Youjun, best known for his magical fairy tales.  The book’s availability in English is an adventure in itself: 13-year-old Lily Shi of Lewiston, Maine loved it so much that she wanted her friends to enjoy it too, so she spent the summer translating the book for them to read.  Thanks to her perseverance, an English translation is now available for the first time, published by Better Link Press.

The Adventures of a Little Rag Doll is part The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, part Toy Story, and part Scheherazade coming-of-age tale – of a doll, that is. Although Little Teacher made Little Butou with love and care out of scraps of rag, he was a little selfish, had a little bit of a temper, and was more than a little bit cowardly. After his original child owner, Dou Dou, rejects him, a warmhearted girl named Ping Ping takes Little Butou in.  But when Little Butou twice spills Ping Ping’s rice all over the ground, even after she tells him how every grain has value and must not be wasted, Little Butou runs away. He feels angry with Ping Ping for scolding him, and decides to find Dou Dou, who won’t care about things like rice grains.

Thereupon follows a tale of happenstance, adventure, misery, and miracles, as Little Butou winds up hundreds of miles from both Dou Dou and Ping Ping.  Danger and near death, new friends and recurring rat enemies help Little Butou not only learn to find courage, but also to value love – the love that goes into every grain of rice, and the love that people like Ping Ping show everyone around them.  The accomplished translation captures the rhythm and pacing of Chinese speech and sentence structure, imbuing a sense of the country into the words themselves.  In addition, the highly entertaining cast of characters and their magical realism-studded adventures keep the values within the story– selflessness, bravery, and gratefulness for kindness and love – from feeling preachy or forced.

Sara Hudson
July 2011

Master story-teller Laurence Yep took his inspiration for his magical version of the Beauty and the Beast fairy-tale from a traditional Chinese tale with a Southern Chinese setting. His The Dragon Prince (HarperCollins, 1997) has some satisfying twists and turns in the narrative and an impressive dragon in the role parallel to the Beast: visually too, thanks to Kam Mak’s powerful illustrations. We just love the noble, enormous, golden dragon, and completely empathised with Beauty/Seven’s inherent trust in the beauty she finds in him, that goes deeper than the fear – even when the Dragon insists, “But you really should be afraid” – yes, Little Brother especially loved that line!

Seven is set apart from her older sisters from the start: while they work in the fields, she does beautiful embroidery, which is then sold at the market, thereby providing the family with the sustenance the rocky ground cannot. The symbolism of this carries the narrative through to its conclusion (it’s a fairy tale so it’s irrelevant to question the point of the other sister’s activities, farming land on which nothing will grow). Three is jealous of Seven – and never more so than when, instead of suffering a terrible fate after agreeing to marry a firece dragon in return for her father’s life, Seven arrives on a visit to her family on a ‘chair of gold and coral’ and with all her maids behind her, descending from the sky in a ‘glittering procession’.

Three therefore tricks Seven and takes her place, preparing the Dragon Prince for a change in his wife’s appearance by saying she’s been ill – which makes for an interesting take on Beauty and the Beast: the Prince “didn’t care. In that short time, Seven had come to mean everything to him, not for her beauty but for her kindness.”

So do they live happily ever after? Well, I highly recommend you get hold of this great story and find out for yourself, and enjoy some cultural nuances along the way. For example, one bit that made me chuckle and served to show the Dragon Prince’s state of mind as he searches deperately for Seven: he buys at a market “without bargaining”!

Gathering Book also featured The Dragon Prince earlier this year, as part of a wonderful series of in-depth posts about Chinese fairy-tales – in case you missed them, here are the other links; they’re definitely worth a read: Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China (which Little Brother read for our Reading the World Challenge in 2008) and Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story from China (which I have also featured as a Book at Bedtime in the past)…

Oliver Chin,
The Year of the Rabbit
Immedium, 2011.

Ages 4-8

Year 4071 of the Chinese lunar calendar was ushered in with the full moon on February 19 this year, and with it came the sixth in Immedium’s series of Tales from the Chinese Zodiac: The Year of the Rabbit.

People born in the year of the rabbit are said to be amiable and gentle, nimble and resourceful. They are known for having fine taste, good luck, and a forgiving nature. Such are the qualities embodied in Rosie, a long-eared (perhaps a little too long-eared) rabbit who befriends a human boy, Jai, when she is captured while sampling from his grandmother’s garden. Western traditions regarding rabbits (the Easter Bunny, lucky rabbit’s feet and being pulled from a hat) are addressed when the other animals from the farm (and from the Chinese zodiac) come by to meet Rosie. When Rosie’s parents come at night to break her out of the cage and bring her back to the burrow an anxious Jai follows with his dog and unwittingly alerts a sleeping tiger. Rosie hears his cry and comes to his rescue. All are ultimately saved when the tiger mistakes the horns of a sleeping dragon for Rosie’s ears and grasps them. In a moment of cultural confusion (Chinese dragons don’t breathe fire) the angered dragon chases the tiger away, shooting flames at his backside.

This bright and playful story makes the ancient tradition of the Chinese zodiac accessible to children everywhere. Justin Roth’s illustrations are in keeping with earlier titles in the series and reflect his background as an animator: the cartoon-like characters have exaggeratedly expressive faces that children will respond to. Kids will also have fun spotting all of the animals from the Chinese zodiac hiding in the pages of the book.

Comics expert and award-winning author Oliver Chin, who also wrote the first five Tales from the Chinese Zodiac books (illustrated by Jeremiah Alcorn and Justin Roth) as well as Timmy and Tammy’s Train of Thought, Baltazar and the Flying Pirates, and the graphic novel 9 of 1: A Window to the World, is, again, clearly in his element. The Year of the Rabbit is a timely way for the youngest readers to get acquainted with this aspect of Chinese tradition.

Abigail Sawyer
March 2011

June 16 is Duanwu or Dragon Boat Festival celebrated in China and parts of east and southeast Asia where there is large Chinese diaspora.  As the ancient story goes, poet and statesman Qu Yuan was exiled on a trumped up charge of conspiracy in the Warring States period of China’s history.   Frustrated by this mistreatment, he jumped into the Milo River and drowned.  The surrounding people of the area attempted to rescue him by launching the now famous dragon boats.  However, Qu Yuan’s body was never recovered, but his many followers and admirers began a tradition of tossing zongzi — sweet sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves — into the river to deter the fish from eating his remains.

This week alongside learning about this holiday from my Chinese friend, I received also a lovely package of freshly made zongzi.  My friend who is from Harbin said that in her region of China, the tradition was to filled with the sticky rice with currants and other dried fruits.  We enjoyed our late evening snack of the dumplings very much.

I haven’t yet seen a dragon boat race although I have friends who participate in them.  Do you do anything to commemorate the holiday in your region?  Do share your stories with us!

Established in 1992 by Nancy Traversy and Tessa Strickland, Barefoot Books is a children’s book publisher based in Bath, UK and Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. It publishes multicultural books that, in addition to providing high-quality content, pay great attention to art and design. One of the company’s core values is to use art and stories “to create deep and lasting connections—whether it’s a child and parent connecting over a book; a child connecting to the universal wisdom of other cultures; or a broad network of people connecting through shared values and the desire to help children become happy, engaged members of a global community.”

Tessa Strickland, Barefoot Books’ co-founder and editor-in-chief, answered our questions about Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing, one of the seven books selected for inclusion in our Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set Donation Project, and about other topics related to the company and to multicultural children’s literature.

Q&A

PT: How did Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing come about as a project for Barefoot Books?

TS: This project came about in quite a circuitous way. First, I was contacted by Clare Farrow, who wanted to know if I was interested in having her retell any traditional Chinese tales. In the course of our conversation, I learnt that she and her husband, Guo Yue, had just completed a manuscript about his life, Music, Food and Love. It so happened that this telephone conversation came about just as I was starting to cast around for stories for older readers, and I was fascinated by what Clare told me about Yue’s childhood in Beijing. So, I asked to read a copy of the manuscript.

PT: When you acquired the manuscript, did you know from the get go that you would published it as an illustrated middle grade book, or was the decision regarding full plate illustrations made later in the process?

TS: When I read Music, Food and Love (Piatkus, 2006), I thought that the best way to tell Yue’s story to children would be to focus on the summer of 1966. The manuscript went through about four drafts and was a close collaboration between Yue and Clare, me, and an excellent editor, Anne Finnis. The decision to make full-plate illustrations was made once we had a manuscript that everyone was happy with.

PT: What can you tell us about the pairing of Guo Yue and Clare Farrow’s text with Helen Cann’s art?

TS: We have done a number of books with Helen Cann; I knew that she would be a delight to work with. Not only is she very talented, she is also extremely interested in developing her own style and in working
collaboratively. She had some very fruitful meetings and discussions with Clare and Yue, who were both extremely happy with her illustrations.

PT: How do you think the public’s attitude toward multicultural books for children has changed since Barefoot Books was founded, in 1992? Are there any major differences between the US and the UK markets in that regard?

TS: As Barefoot has always focused on multicultural books, it is hard to say with very m

Peiling is dreading the Christmas break. She hates hearing all of the other kids talk about Christmas, when her family does not celebrate the holiday. She always wanted to celebrate Christmas, but was afraid that her stodgy dad would say "no". With a little pushing from her Uncle Samson, Peiling approaches her parents who to her surprise say "yes" to Christmas this year.

Peiling has the perfect Christmas in mind...one that she imagines would be happening over at Laura Hamilton's house. It has Christmas cookies, carols, a perfect tree and a turkey for dinner. When Peiling's mother invites Peiling's teacher Mrs. Rosenweig for dinner, Peiling is suddenly embarrassed by her family. The mahjong and karaoke are bad enough, but when she realizes that mother has added Chinese elements to all of the dishes, she is put over the edge. It's hard enough being the only Chinese girl in her class...why does it have to be so hard at home too?

Pauline Chen has written a quintessential culture clash story with Christmas as a catalyst. Readers get to see well-meaning Mrs. Rosenweis use Peiling as an example of multiculturalism, as well as the everyday under the radar racism that kids face. We get a real sense of Peiling's family and culture effortlessly, and the story is sweet and readers can easily relate to Peiling's sense of embarrassment, no matter what culture their families are from.

Everyday this week we are posting part of a series from author Lynne Viola, The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin’s Special Settlements. Check out part one and part two and part three.

Luck and serendipity combined to provide unique and rich sources for the book. I was continually amazed at the degree of detail in the documents. Essentially, the Soviet secret police had documented some of its worst atrocities. The Soviet archives were marvelously intact.

(more…)

Share This