Lunar New Year takes a fascinating look at Ling and her family’s Chinese New Year celebrations. From cleaning the house to the Lantern Festival we learn about the preparations, the celebrations and the symbolism behind the various traditions.
The Story: Ling and her sister, Mei, help clean the house, paint honey on the Kitchen God’s lips and pick fresh flowers. Ba Ba (Dad) paints poems and they go shopping with Ma Ma (Mum) for new clothes. On New Year’s Eve they honour their ancestors with special meals and incense before sitting down to a big family dinner. On New Year’s Day they put on their new clothes and visit friends and relatives with gifts. They receive packages of money, light firecrackers and enjoy dragon dancing at the New Year’s parade. The Lunar New Year culminates on the fifteenth day with the Lantern Festival.
It’s fascinating to learn the meaning behind the traditions, cleaning sweeps away bad luck and evil spirits, arguing before New Year can also bring bad luck and red is the colour of good luck. The colours of the flowers are also significant – pink peonies for peace and yellow narcissus for good fortune. The food on New Year’s Eve also has a particular meaning and includes noodles for long life and dumplings for wealth.
The easy to understand text is complemented by bold, colourful illustrations which bring the family’s preparations to life. We love the white background used for the days before New Year which give way to more sumptuous background colours for the celebrations. Our favourite illustrations shows lanterns floating down the river but we also love the illustration showing firecrackers and lanterns on New Year’s Day.
At the back of the book several information pages introduce us to greetings, Chinese New Year celebrations around the world, the Lunar Calendar and the Chinese Zodiac. There’s also a recipe for Chinese Dumplings, instructions for making a lucky envelope, riddles to create and solve and a quiz.
Lunar New Year is a great book to introduce Early Years or Key Stage One children to Chinese New Year festivities and the significance and meanings behind the traditions. This year’s Chinese New Year is celebrated on January 29th and heralds the year of the snake.
Age Range: 3 +
Author: Natasha Yim / Illustrator: Jingting Wang
Thank you to Quarto Books and Netgalley for the review copy of this beautiful book.
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