A comprehensive and accessible introduction to an important Chinese holiday.
A Chinese family celebrates Lunar New Year.
As the family prepares for the holiday, a child named Ling clearly elucidates the significance of the traditions they follow, from cleaning the house (“We sweep away bad luck and evil spirits”) to applying honey to the lips of the Kitchen God statue (“We want him to only say sweet things”). Then there’s shopping to do as well as cooking for the big New Year’s Eve family reunion dinner. Each page is full of details describing both what the family does and what each action or item represents, and Ling is on hand to explain it all. Yim recounts the famous legend of the New Year beast and offers descriptions of the New Year’s parade, kite flying, and the Lantern Festival at the end of the celebrations. Wang’s illustrations are cheerful and colorful, a flat graphic style with stylized, round-headed figures (while some have black circle eyes, most have slanted lines for eyes). The body of the book feels robust enough, with plenty of solid narrated information, but readers will find even more information in the lengthy backmatter: the history of the holiday, information on the Chinese zodiac, New Year greetings in Mandarin and Cantonese, riddles, a recipe for dumplings, a craft, examples of how Lunar New Year is observed in other cultures, and a quiz.
A comprehensive and accessible introduction to an important Chinese holiday. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780711287136
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Words & Pictures
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lovely illustrations wasted on this misguided project.
The Celebrate the World series spotlights Lunar New Year.
This board book blends expository text and first-person-plural narrative, introducing readers to the holiday. Chau’s distinctive, finely textured watercolor paintings add depth, transitioning smoothly from a grand cityscape to the dining room table, from fantasies of the past to dumplings of the present. The text attempts to provide a broad look at the subject, including other names for the celebration, related cosmology, and historical background, as well as a more-personal discussion of traditions and practices. Yet it’s never clear who the narrator is—while the narrative indicates the existence of some consistent, monolithic group who participates in specific rituals of celebration (“Before the new year celebrations begin, we clean our homes—and ourselves!”), the illustrations depict different people in every image. Indeed, observances of Lunar New Year are as diverse as the people who celebrate it, which neither the text nor the images—all of the people appear to be Asian—fully acknowledges. Also unclear is the book’s intended audience. With large blocks of explication on every spread, it is entirely unappealing for the board-book set, and the format may make it equally unattractive to an older, more appropriate audience. Still, readers may appreciate seeing an important celebration warmly and vibrantly portrayed.
Lovely illustrations wasted on this misguided project. (Board book. 4-8)Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3303-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
A good-enough introduction to a contested festivity but one that’s not in step with the community it’s for.
An overview of the modern African-American holiday.
This book arrives at a time when black people in the United States have had intraracial—some serious, some snarky—conversations about Kwanzaa’s relevance nowadays, from its patchwork inspiration that flattens the cultural diversity of the African continent to a single festive story to, relatedly, the earnest blacker-than-thou pretentiousness surrounding it. Both the author and consultant Keith A. Mayes take great pains—and in painfully simplistic language—to provide a context that attempts to refute the internal arguments as much as it informs its intended audience. In fact, Mayes says in the endnotes that young people are Kwanzaa’s “largest audience and most important constituents” and further extends an invitation to all races and ages to join the winter celebration. However, his “young people represent the future” counterpoint—and the book itself—really responds to an echo of an argument, as black communities have moved the conversation out to listen to African communities who critique the holiday’s loose “African-ness” and deep American-ness and moved on to commemorate holidays that have a more historical base in black people’s experiences in the United States, such as Juneteenth. In this context, the explications of Kwanzaa’s principles and symbols and the smattering of accompanying activities feel out of touch.
A good-enough introduction to a contested festivity but one that’s not in step with the community it’s for. (resources, bibliography, glossary, afterword) (Nonfiction. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4263-2849-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: National Geographic Kids
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
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