New Year (A Lunar New Year Book for Kids)

September 15, 2021
Grades K-3 It's Lunar New Year, and like with many other holidays around the world, it is a time for families to come together, celebrate, and feast. This story is narrated by an unnamed father in China who is unable to spend Lunar New Year with his daughter. She's moved away to Paris with her husband and has not returned to visit her father for many months. The father reflects on the distance and time that separates them and how his little girl is now a grown-up living her own life. Readers of all ages will be able to identify with the father's poignant attempts to understand the complex feelings that come from missing loved ones, especially while also trying to be supportive or see the light in the situation. Details of the Lunar New Year are sprinkled in to educate readers about the traditions. Delicate pen, ink, and watercolor drawings capture the gentle, heartfelt story. Universal themes of family and separation are especially resonant as we cope with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

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October 1, 2021
A father shares heartfelt reflections about his adult child in a distant land. Told from a middle-aged man's point of view, this illustrated book details the deep emotions and ambivalence of a father who is at once proud of his daughter's achievements and independence, yet wistful over how quickly she has grown up and lives too far away to celebrate Spring Festival with him. From Beijing to Paris, visual vignettes carry a monologue that pivots between his reminiscences of her childhood and observations of her current life as a literary translator and a wife. On a macro level, this volume portrays a sliver of China's modern reality in which individuals become global citizens as the result of their international educations and choices to remain abroad. As a work in translation, the text preserves traditional attitudes and biases in food cultures that ring true for the narrator's positioning. His declarative conclusion to "make yourself a feast and enjoy it with Sylvain" signals the father's reconciliation with their ongoing separation yet feels abrupt given how much he misses her "delicate, still childlike voice." Readers might wonder how the otherwise nameless Daughter--or the adult female dining with her father--would respond to his self-absorbed musings. The lovely artwork features sketches and snapshots juxtaposed against plain backgrounds that accentuate the nostalgic spreads. A sentimental holiday story told by a parent as he learns to let go. (Picture book. 6-9)

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October 25, 2021
A Chinese father living in Beijing pens this heartfelt, gracefully sketched letter to his adult daughter, a translator living in France with her French husband, Sylvain. As the father reminisces on holidays spent with his daughter, recalling memories with her from infancy to childhood to adolescence, he hopes that she is celebrating the Lunar New Year well abroad: “It’s New Year’s Eve and I still miss you./ I wonder what you and Sylvain are eating at the moment.” Leng’s distinct, delicate ink-and-watercolor illustrations offer scenes from both China and France, with intricate details conjuring each location. Parents of adult children will resonate most with Mei’s wistful narrative—and will best appreciate its allusive text (“You are no longer that madeleine lover in search of lost time”). Ages 9–up.