A warm and inviting introduction to a culturally significant holiday staple and all that it represents.
Siblings learn about the story behind a beloved Vietnamese Lunar New Year dish.
With Tết approaching, two youngsters visit their Bà (Grandmother) for an extra-special sleepover. Tonight, they’ll learn how to make delicious bánh chưng, “chewy, salty, and sweet” celebration cakes. Together they carefully layer mung beans, pork, and rice on top of banana leaves and wrap them up “tight like a great big hug.” To entertain the children as they wait for the cakes to steam all night, Bà tells them the exciting legend of how bánh chưng became a new year tradition: Years ago, an emperor tasked his sons with creating a Tết dish that would best honor their ancestors; Prince Lang Liêu succeeded with his humble but delectable concoction. The children fall asleep, dreaming of the festivities to come. Using gentle, soft hues, Greene beautifully captures a moment of intergenerational connection through food and storytelling—key components of Tết. The illustrations incorporate familiar Vietnamese textures from banana leaves to rice paper wrappers, a subtle cultural nod that adds visual interest. Greene also uses expressive typography throughout, emphasizing the meaning of the words to keep readers engaged. The book provides some much-needed Vietnamese representation to a growing collection of Lunar New Year titles on the market. The family is multiracial: While one of the children’s parents is of Vietnamese heritage, the other presents white.
A warm and inviting introduction to a culturally significant holiday staple and all that it represents. (glossary, bánh chưng recipe, about Tết, author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250325891
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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