It’s no secret that Asians are seriously underrepresented in American pop culture, including children’s media. Growing up as an ABC (American-born Chinese), it didn’t really bother me that, for the most part, the main characters in the children’s (or any) books I read were pretty much everything but Asian. But at the same time, I never really developed a true love of reading the way other kids did, perhaps in part because I never felt that I could fully relate to the main characters.
Once in a while, it would have been nice to read a children’s book in which the main character was Chinese-American, like me, and looked like me. It would have been nice to read a book in which the characters’ experiences mirrored parts of my own life. And it would have been nice if the storylines were about things that I could relate to.
So, I was really excited when I recently found out about the following books written and beautifully illustrated by Grace Lin:
- Bringing in the New Year
- Dim Sum for Everyone!
- Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival
- Multicultural children’s books by Grace Lin
The family featured in Lin’s books is a Chinese-American family and the stories focus on a number of different Chinese celebrations, customs, and traditions. How refreshing to see an Asian family featured in children’s literature for a change! I’m also totally in love with the artwork in these books – vibrant colors and really fun designs and details.
In honor of Chinese New Year on January 23rd, we’re putting these books on heavy rotation in our household and will be reading them to CJ everyday from now until the 15th day of the CNY celebration!
Are there other great multicultural children’s books out there that you love?
Awesome find! I actually didn’t fully understand/realize that I was different than “Americans” until I returned from living in Taiwan for 2 years after college. Weird, right? It was a good thing and also bad b/c then I got really sensitive to (possible) discrimination. Anyways, it’s good to know who you are though!
The “Dim Sum for Everyone” book seems like it would appeal to people of all ages. Might have to check that out.
I love “First Book of Sushi” by Amy Wilson Sanger.
I absolutely LOVE Grace LIn’s books for elementary school age kids, “The Year of the Dog” and “The Year of the Rat”. They deal with issues of identity, racism and culture seamlessly, and are really fun and entertaining, too. I’m going to be reviewing another great Chinese New Year book this week, too!
We love “Dim Sum for Everyone”. Thanks!
I (haven’t yet) married into a Vietnamese family. It’s even harder to find Viet books for my mixed race daughter! We did find a few for the Lunar New Year (because most are for the Chinese New Year heh), and a few more for Tet (Viet New Year).
It’s harder still because I do not speak the language so the normal books that are all in Vietnamese I can’t read to her (and her father is pretty bad at it too). She only speaks English but I’m trying to at least get her comfortable with learning the sounds of the language. It’s so hard as a non-native speaker, but I’m the one home with her.
OK, enough…that was a big of word vomit LOL. Suffice to say, we try to expose her to her culture (all of them) and it’s hard, especially for any of the Asian ethnicities.
Really interesting insight. We just took our son to Dim Sum when we were in NYC the other week. That book, in particular, is one I’d love to order for him.
I’m a Caucasian and married another Caucasian, but one of my favorite books is called Jazz Baby by Lisa Wheeler.