Book Shelf

My new favorite kids' book is called Dragon's Fat Cat by Dav Pilkey.  It was recommended by my little one's Kindergarten teacher.  The title's not so PC, I guess, but the story is just so cute & silly, and the illustrations are so adorable.

Basically, Dragon lives in a nice, warm house and one winter day hears a cold, gray cat meowing outside, sitting in the snow.  He brings the cat inside and names it "Cat."  Unfortunately, poor Dragon has no idea how to take care of Cat. 

My favorite part is when Dragon & Cat walk to the highway and pick up litter to make a litter box for Cat.  Eventually, Dragon makes his way to the pet store and leaves with everything that he needs, except...Cat!  Oh, no!  Dragon looks everywhere for Cat.  How will Cat ever make it home again? 

What a delightful book to read--over and over again! 

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I picked up this book from the library called Chinese New Year Crafts:  Fun Holiday Crafts Kids Can Do! by Karen Bledsoe.  It's a nice collection of easy Chinese New Year crafts to do with young kids.

The introduction explains about Chinese New Year fireworks, dragons, feasts, parades, and the Lantern Festival.  The crafts include New Year Banners, Good Luck Characters, Chinese Zodiac Pictures, Paper Firecracker Candy Holders, Noisemakers, Dragon Streamer Puppets, Dragon Costumes, Red & Gold Bracelets, Ribbon Lanterns, and Chinese Papercuts. 

My little one especially liked the Chinese Zodiac Pictures, but all of the crafts in this book look fun to do.

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Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult was not an easy book for me to read.  I guess the difficulty lies in the subject matter.  I used to never cry, but ever since I became a mother, tears flow at the drop of a hat. 

This is a touching story of a young girl named Willow, only 5 years old, who was born with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI).  It's a bone disease, a collagen defect, that makes her bones incredibly easy to break.  She's suffered from dozens of fractures in her short life, the first several ones actually occurred in utero.  The poor girl is incredibly bright, and longs to go skating and to do other normal things that all of the other kids get to do. 

Willow's disease affects her entire family.  Her mom had to give up her career as a pastry chef in order to attend to her.  Her dad has to work overtime shifts on the police force to cover her medical expenses and equipment.  Her sister, Amelia, becomes somewhat of an afterthought in the family, since her needs are not so dramatic and apparent as a femur breaking through the skin.

Willow's mother adds to the turmoil in the family by initiating a lawsuit against her OB (and former best friend) for wrongful birth, stating that had she been told of her daughter's illness at her 18-week ultrasound, she would have terminated her pregnancy.  She is now suing for damages.  Her actions negatively impact her relationship with her husband, her daughters, her best friend, and the entire OI community, but she feels that she's doing the right thing for Willow by getting her the money for all of the medicine, therapy, treatments, hospitalizations, medical devices, equipment, and special needs camps that Willow might need to live her life to the fullest.  It's what any loving mother would do for her child...or is it?

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I just picked up a book from the library last week called Short Girls by Bich Minh Nguyen.  It caught my eye because I'm short, and I enjoy reading novels written by Asian American women.  It's fun to read stories that are vaguely familiar and resonate with me and my upbringing.

The book tells the story of two sisters, raised in the US, but born to immigrants from Vietnam.  Their father is an inventor of appliances made to service short people--the Luong Arm to help one reach items from a high shelf and the Luong Eye to help one see above the crowds.  In his own way, he was trying to level the playing field in this new world for himself and his daughters.

One sister is Van, an accomplished lawyer, whose marriage is falling apart.  The other sister is Linny, a college drop-out, who's having an affair with a married man.  Both of them are drifting, and not really understanding who they are or what they want in life.  Their father's citizenship ceremony brings them together for the first time in a long time.  Confronting one another, and the men in their lives, finally leads them each down a different path in their lives, hopefully for the better.
 

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In the novel Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, the author writes about another difficult topic--a high school shooting in a small town. 

Here, we meet Peter Houghton, a 17-year-old high school boy, who has been teased and bullied by his classmates ever since the first day he got on the bus in Kindergarten.  Initially, Peter had one friend, Josie Cormier, to stand by him.  But by the 6th grade, even Josie dumped him and joined the others, in order to avoid being teased and bullied alongside Peter.

Eventually, Peter finds comfort in creating video games at home on his computer, where he is the one in control and is capable of blowing everyone else away.  What happens when real life at school becomes too much for Peter to bear?  He spends nineteen minutes shooting in the hallways at his school.

Caught in the middle of this disaster, Josie watches as her boyfriend and her classmates die in front of her.  Then, she finds out that her mother is scheduled to be the judge when the case goes to trial.  Even worse, Josie gets called to be a witness for the defense.  When will this nightmare end?

Given the subject matter, I initially wasn't sure if I wanted to read this book, but I found Ms. Picoult's writing to be thought-provoking and completely absorbing, as always.  It's a worthwhile read.

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I just finished reading Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie.  It's a very moving story about a couple of teenaged city boys who were sent by the Chinese government to be re-educated in a remote mountain village of China during the Cultural Revolution. 

While enduring grueling manual labor in the fields and in the mine, they learned the ways of country life and were losing hope in ever returning back to their homeland.  The only bright spot in their miserable lives was the discovery of a collection of amazing classic Western works of literature (translated into Chinese), which were completely banned in China. 

They shared these stories with the beautiful daughter of the local tailor to win her affection.  These stories by Balzac, Hugo, Dumas, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Rousseau, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Dickens, Kipling, and Bronte gave them hope and changed their lives forever.

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I saw the book Meet Kai-lan! at Target and just had to pick it up for my little one--it's so cute!  I love how the book incorporates Chinese words in pinyin into the story.  

As many of you know, "Ni Hao, Kai-lan" is a preschool show on Nick Jr. that stars a Chinese American girl named Kai-lan.  This book's story is much like one you'd find on the TV show.  First, Kai-lan wakes up the sun, then she visits her grandpa, YeYe, and admires his hat.  She and her friends decide to make hats and have a hat parade.  Rintoo the tiger and Hoho the monkey get into an argument.  Can Kai-lan help everyone to make peace in order to go on with the parade?

Overall, I thought this was a cute story, and my kids enjoyed it.  The characters are adorable, and the book tries to teach kids how to resolve disagreements between friends. 

One recommendation for improvement would be for the editors to add the tones to the pinyin, as the tones are necessary in order for new Chinese learners to know how to pronounce the words.  I looked up the tones in this Chinese-English dictionary and wrote them in myself.

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I just finished reading The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve.  It took me forever to finish it because I've been so busy with the new school year and many other things.  But I have to say, I loved reading this book.  Funny--I had just picked it up at a garage sale on a whim.

The book starts off with a poet, Linda, at age 52, attending another boring writer's conference.  Only this time, to her surprise, an old lover from her past walks in the door.  The love of her life.  They hadn't seen each other in 25 years.  They had both loved and lost so much since then.  There was a lot to catch up on, and so many unanswered questions.

The book takes us backwards in time to tell their story.  They had last seen each other in Africa, so many years ago.  He was married to one...and she was married to another.

Prior to that, they had been mere teenagers in love, attending high school and hockey games...until the terrible accident that had changed the course of their lives forever.  A well-written, absorbing book!

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I was lucky to find this cute little board book at our local library.  Mandy and Pandy Say, "Ni Hao Ma?" is a board book written in English, Simplified Chinese, and Pinyin.  It also comes with an audio CD in English and Mandarin.

Mandy is a little Chinese girl who is friends with a panda named Pandy.  Mandy and Pandy greet each other with "Hi" and "How are you?"  They play a game called "What do you like?"  Then, they name their favorite family members, foods, friends, and activities.  They like going to the park, playing in the water, going for a walk, playing in the snow, and going to sleep.  You get to learn how to say all of these words in Mandarin, with the help of the audio CD. 

Mandy and Pandy is a great intro to Chinese book for toddlers and preschoolers and has adorable illustrations.  Check it out!

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