Anticipating New Year

Catherine Gower (author)

He Zhihong (illustrator)

Long-Long's New Year

Tuttle, 2005

  In preparation for the new year, young Long-Long accompanies his grandfather to market to sell cabbages. As grandfather patiently waits for customers, Long-Long takes their bicycle for repair and earns one yuan for helping the repairman. His grandfather continues his marketplace vigil, as Long-Long considers whether to spend his yuan for steamed buns or rice soup with pickled vegetables. A fortuitous conversation with the cook ensues. Turns out, she needs cabbages. As she approaches Grandpa, she scolds his dubious competition, "I told you never to come back here! What are you selling this time? More holes and caterpillars?" After selling all his cabbages, Grandpa readies for the journey home, while Long-Long sifts through wares at the Hundred Goods Store for gifts for his mother and sister. The two return to Ma and Hong-Hong who step cheerfully over the threshold of their front gate, which is decorated with lucky red messages of the Spring Festival. 

  Catherine Gower's wholesome, rural story is less about new year, and more about rural life. The anticipation of new year gives initial momentum to the narrative, but really the book is about civility, sociality, and family. He Zhihong's charming ink and color images accompany the story. She has an eye for detail, and the reader will find an abundance of vernacular vignettes and material culture. Its effect reminded me of the Song-dynasty painting, Spring Festival on the River 清明上河圖. A glossary provides additional information about Chinese words used in this story.

Qilin-giraffe-Tweega

James Rumford
Chee-lin: A Giraffe's Journey
Houghton Mifflin, 2008

James Rumford previously wrote a journey-based story about the medieval North African traveller Ibn Battuta. This time, Rumford draws inspiration from an early Ming-dynasty painting of what the Chinese identified as a qilin 麒麟, a mythical beast with horns of a dragon, body of a deer, tail of an ox, and hooves of a horse. This qilin was, however, real. Rumford gives the creature a name, Tweega (Swahili for giraffe), and a life story. Young Tweega is born in East Africa, but hunters soon capture him and gift him to the sultan of Malindi. He, in turn, gifts Tweega to the sultan of Bengal, who then offers the beast to the Emperor of China. Throughout his life, Tweega receives good and bad care from humans, whom he aptly names Tall-Boy or Salt-Man, Chattering-Man or Whispering Girl. These encounters, along with the repetition of a phrase of future prediction, "But Chattering-Man could not have been more wrong," give this book more narrative heft and continuity compared to the book about Ibn Battuta. Rumford's artistic talents are everywhere visible, including the map of Tweega the Chee-lin's Journey (which is informed by Ming-dynasty map-making conventions) and his calligraphic transcription of the artist Shen Du's poetic description of the qilin.

Lunar New Year books

I'm a little late with this post, but better late than never, right?


I've already reviewed two version of the legend of the animals of the Chinese zodiac (Monica Chang's retelling, Story of the Chinese Zodiac and Ed Young's Cat and Rat), but of course there are many more to choose from. Dawn Casey's The Great Race: The Story of the Chinese Zodiac gives a lively account by focusing on the side vignettes of the animals' racing strategies and styles. The animals speak to one another, "Come on, Ox!", and the anticipation grows as they near the finish line. Anne Wilson's illustrations are charming, colorful, and equally lively. We have to forgive her vaguely Mughal-looking Jade Emperor and ill-formed Chinese nine 九. A few notes at the end provide additional information about the lunar calendar and major holidays. Children and adults will enjoy looking up their zodiac animal and learning of their attributes, too.


You may be curious not only of the zodiac animal for this year (the Rabbit 兔), but of new year traditions. Grace Lin and Janet Wong both offer colorful introductions. In her typical way, Lin brings us into her immediate and extended family who prepare by cleaning and cooking, decorating and dancing. Wong's approach is more multi-cultural, with a main character who is half-Korean with friends who are likewise born of two cultures. A Franco-German friend celebrates Chinese new year by getting Thai food to go. Cleansing rituals are focused on hoping and dreaming of good luck. Both authors provide additional notes to readers.

Dawn Casey (author) and Anne Wilson (illustrator)

The Great Race: The Story of the Chinese Zodiac

Barefoot Books, 2006

Grace Lin

Bringing in the New Year

Alfred A. Knopf, 2008

Janet S. Wong (author) and Yangsook Choi (illustrator)
This Next New Year
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000

Remembering

Linda Gerdner and Sarah Langford (authors)
Stuart Loughridge (illustrator)
Grandfather's Story Cloth
Shen's Books, 2008

A sensitive and creative boy, Chersheng lives with his brother, parents, and grandfather in the United States. His aging grandfather is afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, and Chersheng must cope with Grandfather's unpredictable forgetfulness. When Grandfather gathers wood for a fire or leaves the bathroom faucet running, it isn't so bad. But, one night, Grandfather forgets who Chersheng is. To comfort him, Chersheng's mother shows him a story cloth that Grandfather made after the family along with other Hmong people fled Laos and lived in a refugee camp in Thailand. The story cloth gives Chersheng a way to connect with his grandfather, and it inspires him to create new artwork connecting grandfather's story to his own.

American dream

Yin (author) and Chris Soentpiet (illustrator)

Brothers

Philomel, 2006

  A few weeks ago, I wrote about another book, Coolies, by this wife-and-husband team. Five years after that effort, Yin and Chris Soentpiet published this book Brothers. Like Coolies, Brothers features a pair of Chinese immigrant brothers, Shek and Ming. The story begins with Shek meeting his younger brother Ming who has just disembarked in San Francisco. When Shek finds extra work on a farm, Ming minds the store in Chinatown. Ming is not supposed to wander beyond the immediate neighborhood, but his curiosity gets the best of him. He meets a boy his age, Patrick O'Farrell, and their transcultural friendship eventually saves the family's store.
  Yin's story clearly chooses to focus on the possibilities of cooperative success (note the boys' excitement bursting in the illustration with a newly fashioned sign, "General Store, We Speak English"), instead of the dark stories of immigration and racism. It gives us reason to feel good, to hope, and to keep trying to make our world a better place. Chris Soentpiet's illustrations are, like Yin's story, finely crafted. There is evidence of generosity and care on every page of this satisfying story.

Journey

James Rumford
Traveling Man: The Journey of Ibn Battuta, 1325-1354
Houghton Mifflin, 2001

  Marco Polo is more famous to American audiences but Ibn Battuta is the earlier and more traveled explorer. Born in Morroco, his initial motivation—piety—takes him on religious pilgrimage from north Africa through Egypt and down the Arabian peninsula to Mecca. From there, he continues onward to Persia, India, Southeast Asia, and China. Almost thirty years and 75,000 miles later (no frequent flyer awards in those days), he returns home.
  In choosing to cover the geographic distance and cultural variety of Ibn Battuta's travels, James Rumford must necessarily limit other aspects, such as character development and narrative complexity. What is left, though, is nevertheless inspiring. The book reads like excerpted from an illustrated travelogue, recording momentary impressions and immediate concerns. Around the text, Rumford provides rich and appropriately impressionistic images in watercolor. And, he illuminates the text with decorative borders of abstract designs, calligraphy, and whimsical figures. A meandering line of text gives direction and movement through the kaleidoscope of written and painted messages. I also like the "sepia" postcards Rumford adds to the endpapers. A glossary and map provide additional information at the book's end.

Keeping Count

It's April, and I thought it would be a good time to take account.

63 reviews in November and December.
26 in January
24 in February
12 in March

for 125 books in the first five months of this blog.

The pace of reviews has slowed, a reflection of both my time and the range of books in the public library collections in my area. I will keep posting, but the pace will be closer to weekly than daily.