China

Materials from China

Roses Sing On New Snow: A Delicious Tale

Maylin works hard cooking delicious meals in her father’s restaurant everyday, yet it is her lazy brothers who claim all credit. When the Governor of South China visits a contest is held in his honor and her brothers do not hesitate to try passing off Maylin’s cooking as their very own. Yet despite their best efforts – and the Governor’s as well! – they cannot replicate Maylin’s delicious dish. They soon learn that there is more to good cooking than right ingredients.

Winner of the Ruth Schwartz Children’s Book Award.

Lunar New Year (Celebrations & Festivals)

Lunar New Year celebrates the biggest Chinese festival of the year through the eyes of Ling and her family in this authentic narrative non-fiction story. Follow along with Ling, her sister Mei, and granny Po Po as they clean the house, pick fresh flowers and visit friends and family carrying red lanterns through their neighborhood. Readers will learn all about the magic of the Lunar New Year by exploring the preparations leading up to the festival, the Reunion dinner on New Year’s Eve, New Year’s day fireworks, Dragon dancing and the New Year Monster, the lantern festival, and much more! Part of the Celebrations & Festivals series, where readers are invited into a family’s celebration to explore the magic and excitement of religious and cultural festivals from around the world.

 

Angel In Beijing

In busy Beijing, New Year’s Eve firecrackers scare a stray white cat into the courtyard of a young girl. The two become fast friends, riding the girl’s bike through the city and seeing all kinds of people and things. Trrrring-trrrring! the girl chimes with her bicycle bell. Niaow-niaow! answers Kitty. On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, the girl and the cat watch the kites soaring above crowded, chaotic Tiananmen Square. Kitty is enthralled by the enormous, colorful dragon kite, and she leaps to catch it as it sails up into the sky – taking Kitty with it and carrying her out of sight! The girl searches the city, visiting all their favorite spots and ringing her bell along the way, but Kitty is nowhere to be found. Will the two ever be reunited? Or could another unexpected friendship be in store – for both of them?

The Words We Share

A young girl helps her dad navigate life in a new country where she understands the language more than he does, in an unforgettable story about communication and community. Angie is used to helping her dad. Ever since they moved to Canada, he relies on her to translate for him from English to Chinese. Angie is happy to help: when they go to restaurants, at the grocery store, and, one day, when her dad needs help writing some signs for his work. Building off her success with her dad’s signs, Angie offers her translation skills to others in their community. She’s thrilled when her new business takes off, until one of her clients says he’s unhappy with her work. When her dad offers to help, she can’t imagine how he could. Working together, they find a surprising solution, fixing the problem in a way Angie never would have predicted.

A gorgeously illustrated picture book from up-and-coming author-illustrator Jack Wong (When You Can Swim, Scholastic) that is at once a much-needed exploration of the unique pressures children of immigrants often face, a meditation on the dignity of all people regardless of their differences, and a reminder of the power of empathy

Song Of Silver, Flame Like Night

Once, Lan had a different name. Now she goes by the one the Elantian colonizers gave her when they invaded her kingdom, killed her mother, and outlawed her people’s magic. She spends her nights as a songgirl in Haak’gong, a city transformed by the conquerors, and her days scavenging for what she can find of the past. Anything to understand the strange mark burned into her arm by her mother in her last act before she died. The mark is mysterious and untranslatable Hin character and no one but Lan can see it. Until the night a boy appears at her teahouse and saves her life. Zen is a practitioner, one of the fabled magicians of the Last Kingdom. Their magic was rumored to have been drawn from the demons they communed with. Magic believed to be long lost. Now it must be hidden from the Elantians at all costs. When Zen comes across Lan, he recognizes what she is: a practitioner with a powerful ability hidden in the mark on her arm. He’s never seen anything like it but he knows that if there are answers, they lie deep in the pine forests and misty mountains of the Last Kingdom, with an order of practitioning masters planning to overthrow the Elantian regime. Both Lan and Zen have secrets buried deep within secrets they must hide from others, and secrets that they themselves have yet to discover. Fate has connected them, but their destiny remains unwritten. Both hold the power to liberate their land. And both hold the power to destroy the world. Now the battle for the Last Kingdom begins.

Eighteen Vats Of Water

Xian wishes to be a legendary Chinese calligrapher like his father, but struggles to focus. Following in his father’s footsteps, he uses eighteen large vats of water to visualize his progress: when all the vats have turned black with ink from his brush, Xian will have practiced enough to achieve greatness. However, Xian soon learns that rote practice is not enough. To be truly great, he’ll need to observe nature and capture the spirit of his subjects on the page.

Dragonfly Eyes

Ah-Mei and her French grandmother, Nainai, share a rare bond. Maybe it’s because Ah-Mei is the only girl grandchild. Or maybe it’s because the pair look so much alike and neither resembles the rest of their Chinese family. Politics and war make 1960s Shanghai a hard place to grow up, especially when racism and bigotry are rife, and everyone seems suspicious of Nainai’s European heritage and interracial marriage. In this time of political upheaval, Ah-Mei and her family suffer much-and when the family silk business falters, they are left with almost nothing. Ah-Mei and her grandmother are resourceful, but will the tender connection they share bring them enough strength to carry through? This multigenerational saga by one of China’s most esteemed children’s authors takes the reader from 1920s France to a ravaged postwar Shanghai and through the convulsions of the Cultural Revolution.