Sweet and simple, like a warm bowl of laba congee on a cold day.
A small child shows readers how their family celebrates the traditional Chinese Laba Festival.
In what looks like a small Chinese village, the young protagonist introduces readers to the Laba Festival, celebrated on the eighth day of the 12th month of the lunar year. Through deceptively simple poetic prose and whimsical typesetting, readers learn that making sweet laba congee, a tasty porridge made from many valuable ingredients, is a highlight of the holiday. The family prepares the ingredients the day before and then cooks it on a traditional wood-burning stove (not their new gas stove) to guarantee that “it will be perfect.” Then they use it as an offering to their ancestors, asking for good luck for themselves and their family, including the child’s father, who is “working in a different city.” They take some in a pot to elderly neighbors, and they smear it on the big persimmon tree that grows in the yard of their home compound. Most importantly, the grandmother, mother, and child sit to enjoy it together. Delicate and charming illustrations of village life recall an earlier time, but hints like having a gas stove and an uncle away at university indicate that this may be a deliberate nod to those who live in poorer conditions right now.
Sweet and simple, like a warm bowl of laba congee on a cold day. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: May 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4788-6934-4
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Reycraft Books
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
An entertaining take on family values, Wimpy Kid style.
A summer vacation turns out to be anything but relaxing for Greg and a teeming horde of Heffleys.
Gramma declines the offer of a grand birthday celebration, saying that “what would make her REALLY happy is if everyone else went to Ruttyneck Island”—though she prepares individual packs of her legendary meatballs. (“You knew exactly how much Gramma likes you by how many meatballs you got.”) A gaggle of Heffley relatives and a dog stuff themselves into a small beach house, where overcrowding, personality conflicts, and simmering resentments become just some of the ingredients in a rolling boil of sitcom-style catastrophes, not to mention questionable decisions ranging from leaving the kids to make dinner unsupervised to labeling a cooler “HUMAN ORGANS” to keep random passersby from helping themselves. As usual, Greg supplies the setups in poker-faced journal entries interspersed with black-and-white drawings of slouched figures bearing frowny expressions of dismay or annoyance to cue the laffs. Gramma, it eventually turns out, not only (unsurprisingly) has plans of her own, but is also keeping a shocking secret about those meatballs. To go with the knee-slapping set pieces, Kinney slips in a tasty bit of family lore about how Greg’s parents met, plus droll takes on such low-hanging comedy fruit as restaurant manners, viciously competitive board games, and social media influencers (Greg being one, albeit with zero followers, and his Aunt Veronica’s little dog being another, with 3.8 million).
An entertaining take on family values, Wimpy Kid style. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9781419766954
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
A bit predictable but pleasantly illustrated.
Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault’s classic alphabet book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989) gets the Halloween treatment.
Chung follows the original formula to the letter. In alphabetical order, each letter climbs to the top of a tree. They are knocked back to the ground in a jumble before climbing up in sequence again. In homage to the spooky holiday theme, they scale a “creaky old tree,” and a ghostly jump scare causes the pileup. The chunky, colorful art is instantly recognizable. The charmingly costumed letters (“H swings a tail. / I wears a patch. J and K don / bows that don’t match”) are set against a dark backdrop, framed by pages with orange or purple borders. The spreads feature spiderwebs and jack-o’-lanterns. The familiar rhyme cadence is marred by the occasional clunky or awkward phrase; in particular, the adapted refrain of “Chicka chicka tricka treat” offers tongue-twisting fun, but it’s repeatedly followed by the disappointing half-rhyme “Everybody sneaka sneak.” Even this odd construction feels shoehorned into place, since “sneaking” makes little sense when every character in the book is climbing together. The final line of the book ends on a more satisfying note, with “Everybody—time to eat!”
A bit predictable but pleasantly illustrated. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781665954785
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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