GOLDY LUCK AND THE THREE PANDAS

Goldy Luck, not an especially lucky child, is awoken by her mother one Chinese New Year and sent to the neighbors’ to wish them “Kung Hei Fat Choi” and deliver a plate of turnip cakes.

Tired and hungry, and thinking of the neighbor boy who doesn’t share, she is reluctant, but she takes her mother’s advice seriously: To avoid bad luck in the new year, she must resolve arguments and be kind. Though no one is home at the Chans’, she enters—and drops the cakes. In trying to clean up, she follows the typical “Goldilocks” storyline, eating the Chans’ congee, breaking a chair, falling asleep in a bed. When the Chans (anthropomorphized pandas) return home, the embarrassed Goldy runs away, but her conscience gets the better of her. In a moral addendum, Goldy returns to the Chans’ to put things right, forming a friendship with Little Chan in the process. Zong’s acrylic illustrations bring Goldy’s culture to life through small details in the households as well as the Chinese New Year parade glimpsed through the doors and windows, though some of the details (Mr. Chan’s massage chair) may seem stereotypical. An author’s note explains more about Chinese New Year and is followed by a chart, unfortunately yearless, of the Chinese zodiac and concludes with a recipe for turnip cakes.

A welcome Chinese addition to the fairy-tale shelf.