LUNAR NEW YEAR

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.