394.2

SUMMARY: 10 year old Ryan is the main character and takes us through his journey of celebrating Chinese New Year. It describes the history, the animals of Chinese New year, what is traditionally eaten, the Lion's Dance, and the parade.

Review: This book's main idea was describing celebrating Chinese New Year. This book was packed full with information. It also had many photographs to compliment the text. It covered a range of topics. When describing the history for example, "Chinese New Year has been celebrated for more than 4000 years. It grew out of ancient celebrations marking the end of winter and the beginning of spring." I liked that it had Ryan, a 10 year old boy, going through the traditions. I believe this will make it more relatable rather than so fact based.

I liked this book for a few reasons. For one, I liked the organization of the book because it went through the history of Chinese New Year and how families celebrate it. I really liked that while the book included factual information, it was written in third person describing how a little boy and his family celebrates the holiday. Each page describes an aspect of Chinese New Year and then goes on to explain how Ryan, the little boy in the story, and his family continue to celebrate with traditions that started long ago. I think having factual information about the holiday and having an actual young character can help students become engaged to read the story. Also, I liked the vocabulary used in the book because it allows students to gain insight about another language. For example, the book opens with, “Gung hay fat choy is a traditional Chinese New Year’s greeting that means may you prosper.” Finally, I liked that there were captions along with real photographs for students who are unfamiliar with the traditions from the holiday can get a visual. The big message of Celebrating Chinese New Year is to show the importance of family and new family and friends in the New Year. ( )

for older, lots of information and phots