The Seeing Stick by Jane Yolen
Daniela Terrazzini (Illustrator)
Ages 4-8
Running Press Kids (September 22, 2009)
Cautions: None

Kiwi Magazine Review:
Thirty plus years later, this inspirational book tells the story of a young emperor’s daughter without vision, who manages to ’see’ with her fingers and open up a whole new world. It’s a beautiful story and will offer children a perspective on our many senses and how we can use them to experience our world. The illustrations are glorious and could stand alone as a work of art.

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The Year of the Rat by Grace Lin
Ages 9-12
Little, Brown Young Readers - 2008
Cautions: None

Kiwi Magazine Description:
The Year of the Rat details the dance between wanting to fit in with the crowd and wanting to express one’s cultural heritage. Pacy is Chinese and, when her best friend moves away, she finds herself alone and sad. For an added challenge, there is a new boy in her class who just moved from China and speaks little English. He’s being picked on by some of the other students and Pacy finds herself in a moral dilemma. Grace Lin tells this story based on her own childhood, so many of the themes ring true.

Product Description
In this sequel to Year of the Dog, Pacy has another big year in store for her. The Year of the Dog was a very lucky year: she met her best friend Melody and discovered her true talents. However, the Year of the Rat brings big changes: Pacy must deal with Melody moving to California, find the courage to forge on with her dream of becoming a writer and illustrator, and learn to face some of her own flaws. Pacy encounters prejudice, struggles with acceptance, and must find the beauty in change.

Based on the author’s childhood adventures, Year of the Rat, features the whimsical black and white illustrations and the hilarious and touching anecdotes that helped Year of the Dog earn rave reviews and satisfied readers.

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The Great Race - The Story of the Chinese Zodiac by Dawn Casey, Illustrated by Anne Wilson
Read Alone: Ages 6-10; Read Together: Ages 4-8
Barefoot Books, 2006
Cautions: None, but cat lovers will be disappointed that the feline didn’t make the top 12.

Kiwi Magazine Description:
The story of the 12 animals that comprise the Lunar New Year is one of my all-time favorites, but it has never been told so beautifully or depicted so richly as in this book by Dawn Casey. You can’t help but feel sorry for the cat who misses out on a spot, but you cheer for the strategic rat who wins first place. It was no surprise to learn my daughter was born in the Year of the Monkey. A great addition to every family library.

Publisher’s Description:

Which animal will win the race and get the first year of the Chinese calendar named after them?

Race long with Rat, Monkey, Dragon, and their companions while discovering the origin of the Chinese Zodiac. This bright and colorful book includes intriguing notes about the Chinese calendar, the festivals, and the animal that rules each year.

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New Clothes for New Year’s Day by Hyun-Ju Bae
Country of Origin: South Korea
Ages: 4 - 6
Kane/Miller - 2007

Kiwi Magazine Review:
Hyun-Ju Bae has created the perfect combination of flawless verse with rich illustrations. Children learn about the customs of the Chinese or Lunar New Year as they watch a young girl prepare by donning her new clothing and preparing for a prosperous new year.

Publisher’s Description:
The New Year is the start of everything new…Follow a young Korean girl as she dresses and prepares for celebrating the Lunar New Year.

A New Year, a new day, a new morning.
New clothes.
We start the year with new things.
New things, for the year-older me.

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Bringing in the New Year by Grace Lin
Knopf, 2008
Ages 4-8
Cautions: none

Kiwi Magazine Review
This book is a lovely and colorful way to teach children about the Chinese (or Lunar) new year and all of the traditions it brings. From the ‘pop’ of firecrackers to the ’snip’ of a haircut, this book celebrates all of the wonderful colors, sounds and sights of a promising new year.

Product Description
This exuberant story follows a Chinese American family as they prepare for the Lunar New Year. Each member of the family lends a hand as they sweep out the dust of the old year, hang decorations, and make dumplings. Then it’s time to put on new clothes and celebrate with family and friends. There will be fireworks and lion dancers, shining lanterns, and a great, long dragon parade to help bring in the Lunar New Year. And the dragon parade in our book is extra long-on a surprise fold-out page at the end of the story. Grace Lin’s artwork is a bright and gloriously patterned celebration in itself! And her story is tailor-made for reading aloud.

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Lucky New Year! (Board book) by Mary Man-Kong (Author), Chi Chung (Illustrator)
Golden Books - 2008
Ages 3-6
Cautions: None

Kiwi Magazine Review:
This book is an informative and fun way to welcome in the Chinese New Year. Flaps, pulls and wheels enable young children to get in on the fun of all of the sights and smells of the prosperous new year.
Publisher’s Description:

Come celebrate the Chinese New Year with its magical traditions- from giving gifts to watching parades! Children will love to scratch and sniff the sweet oranges, turn the wheel to find their Chinese animal year, lift the flap to find the lucky money, and watch the big dragon pop up to wish them a year filled with wisdom, wealth, and happiness. Happy Chinese New Year!

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The Girl Who Drew a Phoenix By Demi
Margaret K. McElderry, 2008
Ages: 4-8
Cautions - all clear

Kiwi Magazine Review:
We want more, Demi! This book is incredibly rich with red and gold illustrations of a friendly faced phoenix. The girl finds the phoenix’s feather and proceeds to draw the mythical creature to summon some of its mystical powers. Simply lovely.

Description from Publisher:
One day a young girl named Feng Huang finds a phoenix feather that has fallen from the sky. When she tries to draw the magical bird and share her inspiration, no one is able to tell what it is. Luckily for Feng Huang, the Queen Phoenix sees her troubles and swoops down from the heavens to offer her help.

A phoenix’s powers are not easily revealed, however, and Feng Huang embarks on a journey of thought, wonder, and self-discovery. Wisdom, Clear Sight, Equality, Generosity, and Right Judgment are worthy qualities indeed, but Feng Huang finds that they are only truly powerful when shared.

Brilliant sweeps of plumage and flourishes of sparkles and stars accentuate award-winning artist Demi’s interpretation of one of the most intriguing and elegant creatures of ancient myth.

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Little Leap Forward : A Boy in Beijing by Guo Yue
Barefoot Books 2008
Recommended readers -Read Alone: Ages 8-14, Read Together: Ages 8-14
Cautions: All clear

Kiwi Bookworm Review:
This is a lovely book which personalizes the Chinese Cultural Revolution from a young boy’s perspective. This true story is captivating and beautifully illustrated. Guo Yue tells his story beautifully and the story ends happily with details of a grown-up Guo Yue raising his own family in a home full of music, poetry and art.

Publisher’s Description:
The first in Barefoot Books’ Young Fiction line, this sensitively written, real-life story focuses on growing up in Beijing in the 1960s, at the time of the Cultural Revolution. Little Leap Forward offers children an intimate and immediate account of a child’s experiences as Mao Tse Tung’s Great Leap Forward policy tightens its grip on China.

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The Lucky Ones: Our Stories of Adopting Children from China

edited by Ann Rauhala and foreword by Jan Wong

ECW, 2008

Recommended readers – Adults

Cautions: All clear

Description from publisher:

What a lucky girl!” Everybody who has adopted a daughter from China has heard that one. And every parent has said, or thought, in reply: “No, we’re the lucky ones.” This anthology sets out to explain why people who have adopted children from China feel as though they’ve won the lottery.

Since the late 1980s, as many as 7,000 Chinese-born girls have been adopted annually and now live in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe. They are officially orphans, victims of a rigorous birth control policy limiting most families to one child. These thousands of girls have formed an international Diaspora, a human wave with no exact parallel and yet numerous points of comparison – sharing issues with war orphans from Vietnam or even with Chinese workers who built the New World’s railroads.

The memoirs collected in The Lucky Ones are organized beginning with infertility, moving to acceptance of a multiracial family, anticipating the adoption, reflecting during the trip to China and, at last, grappling with an odd destiny – turning terrible beginnings into happy endings.

The story of these girls is compelling as a narrative of hope and optimism but it may also become a story of dislocation and crisis of identity. These baby immigrants add unusual texture to the lives of the families they join – they come here not by choice but by someone else’s design.

Kiwi Magazine Review

Each of these 22 stories is unique and beautiful. Adoptive parents share the joy, the challenge, the love and the sadness of becoming parent to another mother’s child. Anyone who wants a more personal look at everything from the decision to adopt to the blending of a new family must read this book. It will make you smile, cry and admire these wonderful families who are willing to give us a window into the world of adopting a child from China.

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Motherbridge of Love Illustrated by Josée Masse (Barefoot Books)

Barefoot Books, 2007

Recommended readers – 4-10

Cautions: None

Description from publisher:

This beautiful poem celebrates the bond between parent and child in a special way. Through the exchanges between a little Chinese girl and her mother, Motherbridge of Love offers a poignant and inspiring message to parents and children all over the world.

Text royalties from the sale of this Barefoot book will be donated to Mother Bridge of Love, a charity that reaches out to Chinese children all over the world in order to develop a connection between China and the West, and between adoptive culture and birth culture.

Kiwi Magazine Review

Break out the tissues for this lovely poem about the two sides of love: the love of a birth and an adoptive mother. “Once there were two women who never knew each other. One you do not know. The other you call mother.” Richly illustrated and deeply touching, this book will span decades.

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