Courage

Soyung Pak (author)

Joung Un Kim (illustrator)

Sumi's First Day of School Ever

Viking, 2003

Our brave heroine is Sumi, whose first day of school is preceded by practicing a single conversation with her mother: "What is your name? My name is Sumi." As her mother leaves, Sumi's initial perception of school is that it is a lonely place. That is followed by feeling that school is a scary and mean place. But with an apology, a smile, an encouraging gesture, and a shared activity, Sumi comes to see her school as "not-so-mean" and "not-so-scary," and "not-so-lonely." Soyung Pak's story is elegantly crafted and sensitively written.

The honest horticulturalist

Demi
The Empty Pot
Henry Holt, 1990

Young Ping has a green thumb, and when the Emperor determines to "let the flowers choose" a successor to the throne, Ping has every reason to be hopeful. Along with children from all over China, Ping receives from the Emperor a single seed to tend for a year. Ping carefully watches over his seed, but at year's end, he has only an empty pot to present to the Emperor. When he sees the other children's flourishing plants, Ping is despondent. But as both his father and the Emperor recognize, he has done his best. Moreover, Ping's empty pot is the only one that represents the honest reality of trying to grow a cooked seed. Demi illustrates this simple and affecting tale with charming, fan-shaped images inspired by Chinese ceramics decoration.

Feed me now!

Linda Sue Park (author)
Ho Baek Lee (illustrator)
Bee-bim Bop!
Clarion Books, 2005

Little girl is hungry and versifies her way through the grocery store, in the kitchen, and at the table. She's hip to a favorite Korean meal of bee-bim bop, which has steamed rice on the bottom and shredded fried egg on the top. In between, she informs us, are savory veggies and meat. Author Sue Park includes a note about bee-bim bop (literally, mix-mix rice) and a recipe, with instructions for you (meaning, the child) and a grownup.

Martial art

Carol Nevius (author) 

Bill Thomson (illustrator)

Karate Hour

Marshall Cavendish, 2004

Carol Nevius' couplets take us through an hour-long karate class, beginning with the students' bow. They stretch, practice forms, focus their minds, take turns sparring, chant in unison, and with feelings of pride and accomplishment return to their parents. Bill Thomson's illustrations are superlative (is he, therefore, a martial artist?). Cropped views and extreme angles capture and focus our attention dramatically. To take just one example, the picture of stretching uses extreme fore-shortening to stretch our vision from an enormous foot looming before our mouse-eye view to the distant right foot that the young karate student grasps. The author's note includes more information about the history and practice of karate (not being an expert, I can't comment on accuracy here), but the book, with its photo-realism-style images of kids of different races, shapes, and genders, is clearly focused on American children's experience  of this imported discipline.

Yo, sisters!

Kathy Tucker (author) and Grace Lin (illustrator)
The Seven Chinese Sisters
Albert Whitman & Company, 2003

Inspired by The Seven Chinese Brothers, the girls in Kathy Tucker's story each has a special talent, which combine to rescue their family's youngest after Sixth Sister's tempting noodle soup stirs the hunger of a nearby dragon. The beast makes a bee-line for the family kitchen, but instead of seizing the soup, it snatches the baby. Her precocious cries for help set the sisters into a kind of Rube Goldberg motion involving daredevil scooter riding, super speedy counting, martial arts, and a finely honed catch.

What is the hypothesis?

George Beshore
Science in Ancient China
Franklin Watts, 1998

George Beshore's introduction to science in ancient (really, pre-modern) China seems well meaning and reasonable, but there are enough minor errors and substantial questions to make me respond unfavorably. Minor concerns include the somewhat misleading title, as the scientific discoveries and developments discussed range in date from as early as 1500 BCE (writing and calendars) to as late as 1500 CE (two-stage rockets). The "ancient" descriptive effectively erases three millennia of historical change in China. Additionally, while I can see reason for using "science" as a shorthand for science and technology, nevertheless it is difficult to square the cover image—the Great Wall—with science. The Great Wall, it seems to me, is more about engineering, political absolutism, and military defense. (To the author's credit, I did appreciate the book's wide range of subjects, which included alchemy, medicine, astronomy, and mathematics.) I was also frustrated with the inconsistency of Romanization of Chinese names and lack of attention to details. Regarding the latter, the photograph of the abacus on page 47 does not correspond to a number (the two beads on the rod 5th from left should have been "carried over" to the rod 4th from left). Finally, can anyone decipher the two characters that recur in the book? It looks like 相稽, but the second character lacks two strokes in the middle of its right half. Thus, I am unable to see the relationship between the Chinese compound and the book.
  But all these little issues aside, I think the big issue is the way Science in Ancient China oscillates between two narratives: first, that China accomplished any particular scientific feat X years before the Europeans, and second, here is how the Chinese understood such-and-such scientific phenomenon. The former is a kind of horse-racing narrative; the latter more descriptive and explanatory. There is, to my taste, too much of the horse-race. Moreover, the race ends badly for the Chinese who, at the book's end, are described as falling behind due to their cultural chauvinism. While that may be true, it seems to me there is a much richer story to be told about science in pre-modern China.

Holiday stories and fun

Nina Simonds, Leslie Swartz, & The Children's Museum, Boston (authors)

Meilo So (illustrator)

Moonbeams, Dumplings & Dragon Boats: 

A Treasury of Chinese Holiday Tales, Activities & Recipes

This kind of anthology is generally not my favorite type of book, but if you are looking for a single book about Chinese holidays, their associated folk tales, and traditions, this one is a good one. Too often, anthologies overwhelm and flatten their subject. Fortunately, rather than going with an encyclopedic approach, these authors have exercised care in their selection of topics and related stories, activities, and recipes.  

  The book is divided into four chapters according to four major holidays (counting New Year and the Lantern Festival as one). Folk tales include less common ones. I enjoyed the one of Dongfang Shuo whose cleverness saved Chang'an and makes sense of new year's show of firecrackers, fireworks, and lanterns. The tale of Jie Zitui, which involves an episode of self-sacrificing cuisine, is not for the squeamish and reminds us of how bracing folk tales really are. While I didn't try out the crafts and recipes, I can imagine that parents and teachers, as well as children, will enjoy them. The list of resources is excellent, and the guide to pronunciation is just about the best I have encountered.

Cinderella's sister

Alan Schroeder (author) and Yoriko Ito (illustrator)
Lily and the Wooden Bowl
Doubleday, 1994

This lovely, traditional folktale rewards the virtuous and beautiful Lily with marriage to the noble and handsome Kumaso. Hints of the Cinderella story abound. Upon her death, a loving grandmother grants with three magical objects to protect her Lily: a rice paddle, a paper crane, and a lacquered wooden bowl. The objects come to Lily's rescue as she must defend herself against a venal and jealous mother figure, Matsu, who is not coincidentally Kumaso's mother. Matsu uses sorcery and lies to try to cast Lily from the household, but Kumaso and his father Yamoto both see the truth of Lily's innocence. Alan Schroeder's retelling flows beautifully; Yoriko Ito's illustrations are gentle, dreamlike, and dramatic. Whatever your opinion on the power and value of feminine beauty, and the impact of concealing it, the wooden bowl is an alluring symbol used to narrative and visual advantage here.

Ancient China introduction

Ken Sheldon, editor
If I Were a Kid in Ancient China
Cricket Books, 2006

Co-authored by contributors to children's magazines Appleseeds, Calliope, and DIG along with staff at Cricket Books, If I Were a Kid in Ancient China is an eclectic mélange of short essays. I love the idea of the series, "If I Were a Kid in the Ancient World...," which includes volumes on Greece, Rome, and Egypt. I wish, however, that pieces in Ancient China hewed more closely to that idea of examining another time-place through the lens of a child. The introductory essay, "Made in China," is snappy, intriguing, and accompanied by attractive pictures. The next three pieces, on everyday life, dress, and toys amplify the introduction. Other essays stray into areas that are not so ancient China (foot-binding, for example, was not practiced widely until the Song dynasty; and the various religions spread along the Silk Road have distinct timelines, some of which do not overlap with ancient time frame).
  I found the fact-checking uneven, too. This volume is the first I have heard that connects the tiger design on children's costume to the visual form of the character for king, or ruler, 王 wang. The fifth Confucian virtue, knowledge, should be zhi, written 智; and I wished that the Chinese equivalent for Confucius was rendered Kongzi (孔子), instead of the latinized Chinese Kong Fuzi. Some of the illustrations implicitly mislead. An illustrations accompanying "A Visit to Chang'an" shows the Han-dynasty Mingtang 明堂, or Bright Hall, a site for state rituals. Without a caption, readers may easily think it represents Chang'an, the city. I don't know whether Chinese children really did collect ants for ant soup (p. 14), but I am reasonably certain that the stirrup was adopted by the Han Chinese from steppes peoples (p. 7).
  I am glad to have appealing and accesible non-fiction books to introduce English readers of all backgrounds to Chinese history and culture. I hope that in time, greater care will be taken to improve the quality of such books from good to excellent.

Rats!

Grace Lin

The Year of the Rat

Little, Brown, 2007

Like its predecessor (The Year of the Dog), Grace Lin's The Year of the Rat begins with the lunar new year feast and the observation that different cultures see rats differently, good and bad. For our heroine, known as Pacy to her family and Grace to others, the year brings difficult changes, most notably her best friend Melody moves to California. Grace feels isolated and alienated, and as a result behaves sometimes shamefully. Her family is there to support her, however, and their personal stories help Grace to learn empathy. The year brings surprising successes as she is affirmed as an artist, sticks up for the new Chinese kid in town (there was, for me, an interesting discourse around the word, "weird"), and begins building more meaningful relationships with the friends she had neglected.

  In the Chinese zodiac, the year of the rat begins a new cycle two years after the year of the dog. Thus, Grace is at the cusp of adolescence, and sorting through questions of self and social expectations is more complex. Lin handles these with, I can't help myself here, grace. And, of course, there's plenty of celebrations (wedding and moon festival sandwiched between lunar new year dinners) with their requisite delicious foods peppering the narrative.

Turning vice into virtue

Ed Young
The Sons of the Dragon King: A Chinese Legend
Atheneum, 2004

The sons of the dragon king behave oddly, suggesting to observers naughty, flawed dispositions. Hearing their reports, the dragon king is dismayed and pays a visit to each of his sons. Although his first inclination was to scold, this father sees differently. The strange, curious, or obnoxious behaviors—like staring into the distance, playing with fire, or yelling and hollering all day long—could be put to good use. Wisely, the dragon king matches his sons' various habits to beneficial occupations. His example is instructive for those of us whose everyday chores include curbing our willful toddlers and headstrong children. Ed Young's note gives some background concerning dragons, their use in Chinese material culture, and his adaptation of this folktale. His illustrations combine lively dragons done in ink brush with more iconic, papercut-inspired representations of their decorative assignments.

Biographies for young adults

 Louise Chipley Slavicek

I.M. Pei from the Asian Americans of Achievements series

Chelsea House, 2010

Mary Malone
Maya Lin: Architect and Artist from the People to Know series
Enslow, 1995

  After reading a couple of picture book biographies, I considered trying to make a week of reviews in that genre. With limited sources for books, however, that idea quickly fizzled. I did lay my hands on a couple more biographies, both coincidentally of Chinese-American architects. These biographies are for young adults, but would be informative for adult audiences, too.
  I prefer Louise Chipley Slavicek's book on I.M. Pei, not only for the color images within the book (which make an enormous difference for apprehending the architectural work as well as the for making sense of the topical sidebars), but also for the wide range of the biography. The latter may be related to Pei's long life (he was born in 1917, and continued to practice architecture around the world into his nineties). By contrast, Mary Malone's biography of Maya Lin focuses about six of ten chapters on the competition, controversy, and outcome of the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, which launched Lin's career. Malone tries to make the case for a broader conception of Lin's practice as artist, especially sculptor, but without delving deeply into specific examples, we remember primarily her memorial works.
  I will resume my focus on books for younger children, but if you have older children (or are looking ahead), the Asian Americans of Achievement series includes books on Margaret Cho, Maxine Hong Kingston, Ang Lee, Yo-Yo Ma, isamu Noguchi, Very Wang, Kristi Yamaguchi, Jerry Yang, and others.

More adventures with Alvin Ho

Lenore Look (author) and LeUyen Pham (illustrator)

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Camping, Hiking and Other Natural Disasters

Schwartz and Wade, 2009

  The multiphobic and charming Alvin Ho is back to conquer his fear of the great outdoors. With help from his Uncle Dennis and older brother Calvin, he puts together an over-the-top wilderness-emergency kit, complete with Batman ring. Sister Anibelly adds disarmingly good cheer, and Dad reliably offers Shakespearean swears and affable comfort to the anticipated camping mishaps. This sequel offers more quality family time, and a little less privileged, Cambridge-insider culture. LeUyen Pham's brisk and charming illustrations accompany Lenore Look's light and light-hearted story.

  For those new to Alvin Ho, the adventures begin with  Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things.

Thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Amy Lee-Tai (author) and Felicia Hoshino (illustrator)
A Place Where Sunflowers Grow
Children's Book Press, 2006

Written bilingually (English and Japanese), A Place Where Sunflowers Grow tells the story of young Mari whose family, among many Japanese-Americans, have been interned at Topaz Relocation Center in Utah during World War II. Mari is sad and confused, but she and her community create activities and social rituals to rise above the injustice and indignity of living in communal barracks surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers. The Topaz Art School gives Mari a chance to make a new friend and express her longing for home. With her mother, she plants sunflower seeds, which despite the desert soil, grow, bloom, and bring happiness to the community.
  Amy Lee-Tai has based this hopeful story on the experiences of her mother and grandmother. Felicia Hoshino's illustrations wonderfully capture the wide range of Mari's thoughts and emotions. The internment of 120,000 Japanese-Americans is not an easy event to discuss with children, but as I'm thinking about Martin Luther King, Jr., today, I am reminded that it is important to make the effort. Books like these help enormously.

See with your hands

Jane Yolen (author) and Remy Charlip and Demetra Maraslis (illustrators)
The Seeing Stick
Thomas Y. Crowell, 1977

Jane Yolen is one of our favorite children's book authors, and it was a nice surprise to read her tale about a gentle old man's remedy for the Emperor's blind daughter, Hwei Ming. Yolen never states directly whether the old man is blind, too, but that is the implication, which Remy Charlip and Demetra Maraslis' delicate illustrations also suggest. But where physicians and magicians have failed, the old man can see a way to aid the blind princess. The answer lies in art and artfulness. With a whittling knife and a wooden stick in hand, the old man appeals to human vanity and wonder, overcoming barriers to reach the princess. As the illustrations shift from black-and-white to color, the princess receives the old man's gift of vision. The emperor is deeply moved, and the princess shares her newly found capacity for tactile sight with others.
  I believe that there is a newer edition of this story, with different illustrations, which I have yet to see.
  In response to a reader's suggestions, I will begin adding age groups to my labels with the proviso that those groupings are based on nothing more than my own experience and instinct. I would be happy to hear your input on age groups as I update earlier postings.

More on Chinese characters

 Catherine Louis (author and illustrator) and Feng Xiao Min (calligrapher)
Liu and the Bird: A Journey in Chinese Calligraphy
North-South, 2006

Huy Voun Lee

In the Leaves

Henry Holt, 2005

  Here are two books that embed Chinese characters into narratives. Catherine Louis' beautifully illustrated book unfolds after a dream in which young Liu hears her grandfather calling. On her way to meet him, she encounters a child 子 by a river 川, a woman 女 in the fields 田, and a man 人 resting beneath a tree 休. Each two-page spread reveals a linocut and dyed paper image of gorgeous colors accompanied by a series of pictures that proceed from image to early Chinese script to modern characters. There is one error in the text: "shine 明" and "sun 日" are reversed. There is some inconsistency in traditional vs. simplified characters, and the implied links between pictures, early script, and standard characters are not all consistent with the archaeological record. And even though the story is a little thin and contrived to meet the highlighted vocabulary, I still enjoyed this beautiful book. One last note, there are some interesting suggestions for games and activities.

  Huy Voun Lee's In the Leaves has on its cover the compound for autumn (秋天 qiutian), and it is one of a set of four books with seasonal themes featuring Chinese characters. In this one, Xiao Ming and his friends visit a farm, where he teaches his friends the Chinese for things they encounter, such as grain 禾, fields 田, and pig 豕. Xiao Ming cleverly introduces more complex characters that use these characters as elements. For example, mouth 口 with grain 禾 make harmony 和. His friends respond to these lessons enthusiastically, and so do we. As with Louis' book, bilingual editorial scrutiny is needed. Inside the back cover, the pronunciation guide mistakenly gives the pronunciation for snake, "ssh'uh," for the word for pig 豕 zhu. Still, Lee's images are pure delight, and she makes Chinese characters accessible and fun to learn. 

Beauty and the beast

Laurence Yep (author) and Kam Mak (illustrator)
The Dragon Prince: A Chinese Beauty and the Beast Tale
HarperCollins, 1997

The subtitle conveys the basic outline and theme of Laurence Yep's tale. The youngest of seven sisters known by their birth order is also the most compassionate. When a dragon threatens their father, Seven steps forward to marry the dragon. Seven's filial piety, courage, and eye for true beauty are rewarded when the dragon transforms into a prince who presides over a distant, underwater realm. Although happy, Seven misses her family. While Seven is visiting, however, her envious sister Three threatens her happy union.
  In this variation of a well-known fairy tale, The Dragon Prince does not challenge gender stereotypes or the gendering of virtues, which may or may not be to your taste. Regardless, the book rewards they eye with Kam Mak's magical realism. The images are operatic in their rich colors and dramatic stage settings, and they make the tale come alive.

It started with a pomegranate

Jessica Souhani
King Pom and the Fox
Frances Lincoln, 2007

A man of modest possessions, Li  Ming owned a single pomegranate tree. But he was so proud of that tree that he acquired the name King Pom. One day, Li Ming catches a crafty fox stealing fruit from his tree. The two strike a bargain: freedom in exchange for fortune. So begins a series of unlikely encounters carefully orchestrated by the cunning and persuasive fox. By journey's end, Li Ming find himself, incredibly, married to a princess and on is way to a life of wealth and happiness. Of course, our paths are not generally smoothed by wise-talking animals, but why not indulge in a bit of folksy fantasy? This folktale does not offer up an easy moral lesson, and if that is of concern to you, you might want to use King Pom and the Fox as a teachable moment.

More family, food, and fun

Lenore Look (author) and Yumi Heo (illustrator)
Henry's First Moon Birthday
Atheneum, 2001

Older Sister Jen is our confident and expert guide to the celebration of her baby brother's first moon, or full moon (in Mandarin, 滿月 manyue). Jen trails her grandmother, known as GninGnin (I believe this is Cantonese for 奶奶), whose commanding presence and sure knowledge are central to the performing this tradition. She cooks the chicken soup, decorates with calligraphed characters for luck, and prepares the lucky red eggs. Mother cleans, Father picks up relatives, and Jen keeps the cousins in line. Yumi Heo's plucky figures and cheerful patterns accompany Lenore Look's account of this quintessential Chinese celebration of family.

Comfort food

Grace Lin
Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival
Knopf, 2010

Grace Lin is now my go-to author for comfort food, especially those seasonal yummies that say holiday. Thanking the Moon follows her sisters and parents to a park where together they set up an altar with delicious offerings to the harvest moon, which appears sometime in September or October according to the lunar calendar. Lin's cheerful colors and easy patterns, as always, invite the reader to share in the community celebration.

A year to grow

Andrea Cheng (author) and Nicole Wong (illustrator)
Only One Year
Lee and Low, 2010

Here are two things—a word and an image—that made Andrea Cheng's new chapter book about difference, family, and love one of the finest books I have read. The word is "weird," which is loaded with unspoken intimations of fear. She uses the word just once. Uttered by  a child's friend, it clearly polices the boundary between acceptable and dubious. Sharon, invokes her mother's reasoning to defend against the stinging charge, but it's clear that the ideas and emotions behind "weird" are not easily changed. Cheng has me on the alert now for this word. The image is a sliced apple, with some slices placed at one side of a plate opposite the others. Mama tells her children Sharon (4th grade), Mary (1st grade), Di Di (a preschooler), and us that the slices may be far apart but like family in the US and family in China, they make one circle. One circle that nourishes its members, as Di Di gobbles down the apple. The image captures the book's narrative and its themes.

There is much more to recommended Only One Year—from the thoughtful treatment of the difficult decision to send Di Di to live with his grandparents in Shanghai for a year to the recurring images of childhood play that transform everyday objects and activities into opportunities to stretch the imagination and to express love. The book is refreshingly devoid of cynicism and status markers. It challenges us all to overcome our fears and egos, to forgive ourselves and others, and to make meaningful relationships with each other.

For more about author Andrea Cheng, go to her website: http://www.andreacheng.com/home

Look again

Jay Williams (author) and Mercer Mayer (illustrator)
Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like
Four Winds, 1976

After reading dozens of picture books, I was beginning to feel my eyes dulling to a range of illustration styles. There is the brightly colored, folk-vernacular approach, and then there is the dreamy, evocative vision, and then there is the fine detail and brilliance of watercolors. After this steady diet, Mercer Mayer's illustrations came like a surprise feast.

With ink pen and colors, Mayer captures in an uncanny way the sensitive line and signature conventions of Chinese landscape painting. To that he adds, peasants, officials, and warriors who are a fresh mixture of Chinese figure painting with their medieval cousins like elves and trolls and knights (think Tolkien) with a dash of visual wittiness a la Maurice Sendak. Such mixing can be tricky, but apart from the glowing dragon in the sky, I was happily seduced into Mayer's visual world. The art historian in me smiled a knowing smile at Mayer's visual reference to the masterful knickknack peddler paintings by Song-dynasty painter Li Song.

Mayer's knotty, gnarled pine trees set against rocky cliffs create the seemingly timeless setting for a pre-modern Chinese city where Jay Williams' tale unfolds. The city has reason to expect an imminent attack, and among several strategies, the city's Mandarin determines to pray to the Great Cloud Dragon for aid. Then a fat, bald, old man (think the auspicious Buddhist character, Budai) appears claiming to be the Great Cloud Dragon. The powers that be predictably dismiss him, but the young gate-keeper Han motivated more by humanity than belief offers hospitality. Han's virtue saves the city, reminding us to keep our eyes and our hearts open to magic, miracles, and all that good stuff that can be appear in the wrappings of the everyday.

Taking flight

Marissa Moss (author) and Carl Angel (illustrator)
Sky High: The True Story of Maggie Gee
Tricycle, 2009

Moss tells the story of Maggie Gee, a Chinese-American pilot in the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP (I am not making up that acronym), in the first person. The time is the World War II, and women throughout the US have entered the workforce and enlisted to support the war effort. Gee jumps at this chance to pursue her childhood dream of flying airplanes.

Of 25,000 applicants, Gee is among 1,037 who graduate from flight school and becomes a WASP. Although the WASP never see combat, they help train other pilots and fly 60 million miles combined in missions. Moss' narrative includes an anecdote highlighting race. After a difficult landing involving another plane, Gee observes the other pilot's fright when he mistakes Gee's Asian features for Japanese enemy. "I felt like an exhibit at the county fair, a two-headed cow, the amazing Chinese American WASP." But the feeling lasts only a moment, as Gee quickly announces her citizenship and loyalties and resumes her identity as pilot, pure and simple.

In contrast to Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story, Gee's biography reveals little discrimination and no generational conflict. In her case, the exigencies of war trump race; and the particulars of her goals are generalized as a story, equally valid as the stories of her mother and her grandmother.

Taking the plunge

Paula Yoo (author) and Dom Lee (illustrator)
Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story
Lee and Low, 2005

Paula Yoo's true story of Korean-American Sammy Lee (born in 1920 in Fresno, California) traces Lee's olympic triumphs. He placed first in the 10-meter platform diving event in the 1948 games in London, and in doing so, Lee was the first Asian-American to win a gold medal. Four years later, Lee successfully defended his gold in Helsinki.

On the path to success, Lee encountered two formidable challenges. Discriminatory policies limited his access to the public pool, and so Lee dug a hole in his backyard, filled it with sand, and used that for practice. When Lee's immigrant father withheld support for athletics in favor of academics, Lee "struck a deal." If Lee earned marks high enough for medical school, then he could dive to his heart's desire.

Lee's dreams, those of his father, as well as the hallowed American dream all come true, and Lee's story continues to resonate, as young Asian-Americans struggle with negotiating ever-shifting American norms and with the aspirations and expectations of parents. In this context, Lee's story may be equal parts oppression and inspiration. How realistic is it to match Lee's achievements? Can any individual do it all and please everyone? As educators and parents express increasing concern about the programmed and stressful lives of students and children, Yoo's book offers an opportunity to discuss which goals to pursue and why.

Another whirl around the sun

Ed Young
Cat and Rat: The Legend of the Chinese Zodiac
Holt, 1995

Pondering about the new year, resolutions, and traditions, I thought that Ed Young's Cat and Rat would be a fitting book to begin 2011. Young's retelling of the Chinese zodiac story comes closest to my mother's version, which focused on explaining the antagonistic relationship between felines and rodents. Once they were friends, but the legendary race that pitted hare against horse and feathers against scales, killed that camaraderie. The flying and the fleet were no match for the cunning and unscrupulous. Young's prose focuses on the competition and the count as each animal crosses the finish: Number one! Number two! and so forth. His illustrations are replete with movement and intensity, flaring nostrils and wide-eyed effort, but they are also quite dark and rather hazy with charcoal smudges. And the black background adds to the darkness. In my mind's eye, the race should take place under brilliant sun and festive atmosphere. But given the rat's treachery, Young's interpretation may be more appropriate. The guide to the zodiac at the book's beginning reveals your personal traits.

Speaking of counting, I thought it was a good time to mark my progress toward 365 books.

45 reviews in November plus 18 reviews in December make 63 book reviews in 2010. This is review #64.