Brainstorm 100: Dimsum books & other treats for Chinese New Year

I work at an international school in Asia, so there’s a holiday coming up in about a week that’s important to many of the families of our students (and the surrounding community). Some call it Chinese New Year, some call it Lunar New Year, but whatever you call it certain staple traditions are sure to be found. And one of those traditional Chinese New Year staples is food. So in honor of Chinese New Year, some books that celebrate favorite Asian foods…plus one about an Asian American who knew the importance of preparing good food.

As a bonus, I’m including two of my favorite picture books that introduce readers to the basics of typical Chinese New Year celebrations.

Picture Book Fiction Resources

The Ugly Dumpling by Stephanie Campisi, ill. by Shahar Kober
The ugly dumpling tries his best to be like the other dumplings, but he just can't be like them and is never chosen. Then a cockroach pulls him out of despair, shows him the wider world and helps him figure out what he really is.

Activity Tie-ins/Target Readers:

• Compare/Contrast: This is a little bit of an Ugly Duckling retelling, so pair it up with a more traditional telling for a compare/contrast activity.
• Outcasts & Friendship: More than being a retelling of the Ugly Duckling, this is a story about not being afraid to be friends with someone everyone else rejects. It's sweet and humorous (though definitely not one to share with the health inspector). 
• Foodies: There seems to be a growing trend in picture books to feature food as characters. For the little foodies out there, this is a nice Asian flavor to the reading pile. (Although it is slightly disturbing to have cravings to eat your favorite characters...hmmm. Of course, Dumpling's been hanging out with a cockroach, so he's not as tantalizing.)
• Illustration View Point: I really liked the illustrations, especially the depictions of the wider world of the kitchen through the eyes of the cockroach and dumpling.

Dim Sum for Everyone! by Grace Lin
A little girl and her family go to have dim sum at a restaurant, introducing readers to some of the common dishes and unique traits of a dim sum restaurant.

Activity Tie-ins/Target Readers:

• Multicultural Read/Cultural Restaurant Experiences: Short, sweet, and culturally spot on. This is a great multicultural picture book that introduces a yummy restaurant experience (which can potentially be overwhelming for first timers...this would be good to read before going for dim sum the first time). 
• Food History/Culture: The back of the book includes an informative note on the history and development of dim sum restaurants, and common practices you should use when visiting such a restaurant. 
• Three Cheers for Grace Lin: If you haven’t read Grace Lin yet, you really need to. She’s a fantastic children’s author and illustrator. She produces books with heart, fun, and that encourage living as a good friend, family member, and citizen. She writes/illustrates picture books, an early reader series, and amazing chapter books for middle graders. And she pretty much produces half of the Asian American lit for kids single-handedly. (Ok, maybe not quite, but it almost feels that way.) Look for more books by Grace Lin on today’s page, go look for her online, and definitely go read some of her books. My favorite of hers is Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.

Bee-bim Bop! by Linda Sue Park, ill. by Ho Baek Lee
A little girl helps her mom make Bee-bim Bop and cheers the process along because she is hungry.

Activity Tie-ins/Target Readers:

• Korean Food: Mmm, this book makes me hungry. I love this Korean dish, and the book is the perfect celebration of it. 
• Happy Kitchen Helpers/Little Foodies: The book would be more annoying if the girl wasn't helping her mother, but she is doing all she can to help. Gotta love cheerful kitchen helpers, and this girl is a fantastic example. A great book to talk about why we enjoy cheerful helping vs nagging. For those who want to try this yummy dish and their cheerful kitchen helper skills, there's detailed instructions for how to make bibimbop in the back of the book that separates the steps into things a child can do and what adults should do. 
• Books with Beat: The rhythm and rhyme of this are such that you could clap or stomp along with the book. It helps emphasize just how hungry the little girl is for bibimbop (that's another way to transliterate the dish, and the one I'm more used to).
• Repetition for Pre-Readers: There's a phrase repeated that little ones can catch on to and then start "reading" along at those points. 
• Food History/Korean Culture: The author's note in the back explains the dish and the meaning of the two words in Korean. A fun Korean food book for kids.
• Three Cheers for Linda Sue Park Too: If Grace Lin writes half of the Asian American lit, then Linda Sue Park pretty much writes the other half. She also has a bunch of picture books and chapter books that introduce kids to Asian culture. Her chapter books tend to look at historical Korea and contemporary Korean Americans, though her most recent series is a fantasy/dystopia setting. Definitely go find some of her books to read too! My favorites are Yaks Yak and A Single Shard.

Picture Book Biography

Mountain Chef: How One Man Lost His Groceries, Changed His Plans and Helped Cook up the National Park Service by Annette Bay Pimentel, ill. by Rich Lo
Tie Sing was a Chinese American who worked as a chef for campers in the California mountains. He is all but forgotten by history, but played an important part in convincing key Americans to form the National Park Service. When Stephen Mather put together a camping trip of these key Americans to show them the land that needed to be preserved, he picked Tie Sing to make sure their tummies were happy so that the trip would more likely be a success. Feeding men well on the trails in the mountains is a challenge, but Tie Sing impressed the men with his cooking and helped make the whole experience a pleasant one. Those men soon went back to Washington D.C. and convinced the nation to form the National Park Service.

Activity Tie-ins/Target Readers:

• Impact of “Ordinary” People: I like this book for a number of reasons, but probably most of all because it highlights the impact even "ordinary" people can have on the future. No job is unimportant. No job is too small to have an impact, and Tie Sing exemplifies that.
• Chinese American Bio: It's also nice to have a picture book biography of a Chinese American from the early 1900s. Those are few and far between (if any others exist...I can't think of any off of the top of my head). The author also includes short bios of the other men who were on the camping trip.
• National Parks History: As mentioned in the title, if not for this trip, the US may not have had a national parks system. It’s an interesting tidbit of park history.
• Research Process: The author provides some very interesting notes on the challenges she faced doing research for this book.

Graphic Novel Resource

Cook Korean!: a Comic Book with Recipes by Robin Ha
I’ve featured this one a few times recently so I won’t say much more about this, except that Ha does include several traditional Lunar New Year dishes in this book and her recipes are easy to follow (and include adaptation ideas if you have trouble finding certain ingredients).


Middle Grade Fiction Resource

Dumpling Days (Pacy, #3) by Grace Lin
Pacy and her family are off to Taiwan for a whole month to visit family. Pacy isn't too sure about this. Her parents think it's important for her to understand her roots, but she'd rather just stay in the comfort of New Hartford, CT. At first, Taiwan is just as confusing and strange as she'd thought it would be. She can't understand any of the Taiwanese or Chinese people when they speak. She can't read any of the signs. And she's worried that everyone can tell just by looking at her that she's a twinkie (Asian on the outside, white on the inside) and is judging her. Her mom has enrolled Pacy and her two sisters in Taiwanese cultural art classes while they're there. Pacy thought her class would be a breeze since she knows she has artistic talent, but it seems to take her forever to just get painting bamboo right. She's afraid that maybe even her talent has abandoned her here in this strange land. The two bright spots in Taiwan are the family members they get to see and all the incredible dumplings, Pacy's favorite food. Pacy and her sisters are afraid it's going to be a horribly long and torturous month in Taiwan, but the time flies quickly and without realizing it they learn a few things about Taiwan, their family, and themselves along the way.

Activity Tie-ins/Target Readers:

• Third Culture Kids & Fourth Culture Kids: There's a unique group of kids in this world who live in one culture, have parents from another culture, and thus they create their own special third culture that is a mix of both but not quite exactly like either one. We call these kids third culture kids. They're children of expats who work overseas or the children of immigrants. And Grace Lin has definitively nailed what it is to be a third culture kid in this book (well, she does have firsthand experience). The ups and downs of Pacy and her sisters are common ones for any expat kids returning "home" or children of immigrants visiting their parents' home. They may look like they should fit in, but they feel so very out of place and often struggle to figure out who they are. (Ok, so this doesn't just apply to kids. We adults who live overseas most of the time can feel the same way when returning to our passport countries.) There are so very few books out there that understand third culture kids, so I'm super excited that Grace Lin wrote this book. It's important for children like Pacy to figure out how to maneuver between cultures and come to peace with their unique blended cultural identity, and I think reading that other kids have similar experiences will help them. Thanks Grace Lin for sharing! I know that the 100s of international students at my school often feel just like Pacy, and it's great to have a book heroine for them to identify with. 
• Foodies: A word of warning: This book made me hungry! Thankfully, wax apples (called rose apples here in Thailand) and dumplings and noodle soup are available just around the corner for me. Cultural food is a big part of this book, and great introduction to some new foods for kids from other places.
• Taiwan Culture: Get a little intro to Taiwan by travelling there with Pacy.
• Contemporary Fiction Fans: There’s a huge group of students at our school who adore contemporary fiction and pretty much subsist on a steady diet. The entire Pacy series is a great recommendation for those readers.
• Travel Story Fans: For readers who like to go to new places in their reading, check out Taiwan through Pacy's eyes.

Picture Books about Chinese New Year

Bringing in the New Year by Grace Lin
Short, simple and clear introduction to the traditions of Chinese New Year celebrations.

This is my favorite Lunar New Year book I've read. It is simple but gets across all the important traditions of the holiday. Grace Lin's illustrations fit so perfectly with their bright colors. There's a note in the back with further information. If you only have time for one Chinese New Year read, I'd pick this one.

Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas by Natasha Yim, ill. by Grace Zong
A retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Instead of Goldilocks, meet Goldy Luck, who doesn't feel very lucky. Nothing she does seems to turn out right, even taking turnip cakes to her neighbors the Chans for Chinese New Year is almost a fiasco.

The story of Goldilocks adapts quite well to be a Chinese New Year tale. And the author/illustrator team came up with some great reasons why Goldy Luck would reject certain chairs or beds (my favorites were the massage chair and mechanical bed that freak out Goldy by starting to move on her, and if you've ever felt a traditional Asian bed, you know it works perfectly for the father's bed in this tale). Yim explains some of the traditions of Chinese New Year and the significance of special foods and decorations in the back. It's a succinct explanation but covers all the basics quite well. Pull this one out for Chinese New Year, or for a compare/contrast with other Goldilocks adaptations.