Counting down to Lunar New Year #1 - Chinese New Year Books!

Chinese New Year is a fairly big celebration here in Singapore and since Dumpling attends daily Chinese lessons, we read up on many of these Chinese celebrations and festivities. Here are some of our picks: great as a read-aloud or for your child to read independently. 

:: 1. Chelsea's Chinese New Year

What first drew me to this title was how 'Charlie and Lola like' the drawings and characters are, except well, Chelsea is an Asian. :) After a bit of research, I realised that the illustrator has also illustrated many children's books bearing similar cherubic faces. :D

The story is simple, narrated by Chelsea on how her family celebrates Chinese New Year and the common practices the family has.  

The story is presented in a simple manner and provides some good basic information on this celebration. The title also has 'blurbs' of useful information (in purple boxes below).

Number of pages: 24
Author: Lisa Bullard 
Illustrator: Katie Saunders

:: The Runaway Rice Cake
The Runaway Rice Cake is like the Asian version of Gingerbread Man, with a twist. The Changs are celebrating Chinese New Year and all they have left is just enough flour to make one rice cake 年糕. However, something miraculous happened - the Rice Cake came alive and ran off.

The Changs gave chase and the rice cake runs into an old woman... What happened to the rice cake and did the Changs have enough to eat?

Number of pages: 40
Author: Ying Chang Compestine
Illustrator: Tungwai Chau

:: Hiss! Pop! Boom! 
If you are looking for a informational title, Hiss! Pop! Boom! is a good choice. It talks about the various traditional practices presented with gorgeous Chinese ink painting. I was actually reminded of the meaning of some of the things we eat and do after reading this book! :)

Number of pages: 32
Author: Tricia Morrissey
Illustrator: Kong Lee

:: Chun Jie
I really like this series of Chinese titles (a series of 6 titles) which is on traditional Chinese festivities. This story shares how some Chinese New Year practices came to be e.g. 'firecrackers' and 'red couplets' came about, and how they were used to frighten the monster Nian.

The title is also not too wordy with about 5 sentences per page mostly. The illustration is cute and the colours are bright too.

:: TaoShu
Everyone's favourite siblings - Tao Shu and Ling Ling learn more about Nian in this short and funny story. Created and published locally, this bilingual title is an easy and entertaining read for preschoolers. Tao Shu (the warrior boy) was told to get some cabbage from their garden. However, he and Ling Ling discovered that someone has eaten all their cabbages. Who can it be? That marks the start of the siblings' investigations.

Number of pages: 32

Author: Andy Logam Tan 

I hope that these give you some ideas on what books you can borrow from the library to read with your preschoolers in getting them to understand and enjoy Chinese New Year more!

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Chinese Book Review - 十二生肖

I like to read up on the meaning / the folklores related to Chinese festivities with Dumpling prior to any occasions / celebrations. From mid autumn festival （中秋节）to Chinese New Year (春节), I have a set of relevant titles that I would dig out and read with her.

Now, when it comes to Chinese New Year, besides the famous story of Nian （年), which tells us of a tale of a terrifying monster which terrorizes Earth and harms its people and how it was frightened by the sound of firecrackers and red decorations, there's also the story of The 12 Chinese Zodiac Signs.

I recall that when I was young, some teachers of mine have read the story in class and I found it interesting how a tiny animal like the 'rat' was able to emerge as the second animal in the race. As Dumpling grew older, I thought that would be an interesting traditional folktale to share with her.

And that's where I ran into road blocks. Maybe I am totally bad in finding for Chinese titles from the library but I could find anything suitable. I even went to the second hand bookstores at Bras Basah to look around too. The only few titles which I recall finding were a short 3-4 pages in a compilation of Chinese stories and some which were a tad too simple for Dumpling.

I finally found this on Dangdang some months back and bought it.

This title comes as a hardcover and with an audio CD that narrates both the English and Chinese stories (I have not tried this our yet).

With the CD, a mini booklet of the English translated copy is enclosed. (The English text is not entirely perfect though :p)

What I like are:

:: Illustrations

This book (which comes in a good size - 25 x 26cm approx) has cute and colorful illustrations. I enjoyed the 'traditional' drawings of the people and some cute humor too.

After each page of reading, Dumpling would spend some time poring over the drawings, smiling, pointing out stuff to me before we continue on.

(Check out the Marilyn Monroe moment)

:: No Han Yu Pin Yin

I know that some mummies prefer titles with Han Yu Pin Yin but for me, as I am reading along with Dumpling where we take turns, I prefer titles without Pin Yin where we can also work on word recognition along the way.

:: Short sentences 

Having said that, each page is not over loaded with paragraphs of words. The text is quite simple to read and often, each page has only 1-2 short paragraphs made up of 1-2 sentences in each paragraph (sample as below).

In fact the below is possibly the page with the most text :)

:: The Storyline

The story holds pretty true to the version that I was told when I was young. It is also kept simple where if used as a read-aloud to a younger child, it should be easily understandable.

It also wove in how snakes ended up with no legs and how the rooster (which based on this story, used to have 4 legs) ended up with only 2. :)

This is a title which I will definitely be reading to Dumpling comes closer to Chinese New Year and which I will be making a Chinese printable pack on. :)

Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner 2013

I love homecooked food. I like that the homely taste and the generous ingredients. :p Best of all, we get to 'order' (ha ha ha) what our favourite dishes.

For reunion dinner every year with my in-laws, it is always a home affair. As my brother-in-law is not based in Singapore, so it was just us and the in laws. Here's what we had! :D

Fish maw soup stewed over many hours (with dried scallops) where the fish maw and the cabbage were soft and the soup 'oh-so-sweet'...

Spinach with Abalone and Mushrooms! Another favourite of mine! :p

Ayam Ponteh!

And of course the famous Sambal Prawns!

Sweet and sour fish slices especially for Dumpling

Needless to say, I had a lot of soup (and fish maw: think collagen!!!) and the prawnsssss. Yummmzzzzz (Adora: are you reading this? :p) I am already looking forward to the next homecooked meal! 

For Dumpling, she was overjoyed as she had her personal chocolate fondue! 

How's that for a reunion dinner catered to the vain (me!), chili lovers (hubs and me again!) and of course even the little one? :)