Alma Flor Ada

Celebrate Chinese New Year with the Fong Family
Celebra el Año Nuevo Chino con la familia Fong

Book Descrip­tion

Story:

A Chinese-American fam­ily invites their good friends the Sánchez’, a Latino fam­ily, to cel­e­brate the Chi­nese New Year with them. Nico, a curi­ous lit­tle mem­ber of the Sánchez fam­ily, is fas­ci­nated by the cel­e­bra­tion and gets him­self in a bit of trou­ble dur­ing his picture-taking adventure.


Non-fiction:

An overview of the his­tory of the cel­e­bra­tion of the Lunar New Year in 12 pages with strik­ing photographs

SERIES DESCRIPTION

Each of the twenty four books in this col­lec­tion ded­i­cated to some of the most impor­tant hol­i­days and fes­tiv­i­ties cel­e­brated in the United States is the com­bi­na­tion of two books in one. The first part is an engag­ing real­is­tic fic­tion story beau­ti­fully illus­trated by a diver­sity of illus­tra­tors. The sec­ond part is a non-fiction piece that explains the his­tory and sig­nif­i­cance of the hol­i­day or cel­e­bra­tion. This sec­ond part is illus­trated with bright and unique pho­tographs that will allow chil­dren to wit­ness the celebration.

The fes­tiv­i­ties addressed include:

• Cel­e­brate Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Day
• Cel­e­brate PowWow
• Cel­e­brate Chi­nese New Year
• Cel­e­brate Hal­loween & Day of the Dead
• Cel­e­brate Mardi Gras
• Cel­e­brate Thanksgiving
• Cel­e­brate St. Patrick’s Day
• Cel­e­brate Hannukah
• Cel­e­brate Cinco de Mayo
• Cel­e­brate Kwanzaa
• Cel­e­brate Fourth of July
• Cel­e­brate Christ­mas & Three Kings Day

For more details in the series and the val­ues it presents see the series descrip­tion: Series Sto­ries to Cel­e­brate / Cuen­tos para cel­e­brar. There is also an indi­vid­ual page, like this, for each of the books in the series.

Les­son plans and ques­tions to guide the Cre­ative Read­ing Dia­logue can be found on the San­til­lanaUSA web­site: www.santillanausa.com/cuentosparacelebrar.htm

CDS DESCRIPTION

There are two CDs with the read­ings of the twelve sto­ries in Eng­lish and two CDs with the read­ings of the twelve sto­ries in Spanish.

The CDs will allow chil­dren to fol­low a pro­fes­sional read­ing aloud indi­vid­u­ally or in groups.

They can be ben­e­fi­cial to chil­dren learn­ing a sec­ond lan­guage, whether Eng­lish or Span­ish, since they will be able to read the book in their stronger lan­guage and then lis­ten to the record­ing in the sec­ond lan­guage, or vice versa.

Author’s Note

Since I am one of the two authors of this book, I can share my side of the story. You can visit www.isabelcampoy.com to read what the other author has to say.

Hav­ing lived in the San Fran­cisco Bay area for thirty three years I am very acquainted with San Francisco’s Chi­na­town, and have had the oppor­tu­nity to par­tic­i­pate in the cel­e­bra­tion of the Lunar New Year many times. As a pro­fes­sor at the Inter­na­tional Mul­ti­cul­tural Pro­gram at the Uni­ver­sity of San Fran­cisco I had the priv­i­lege of hav­ing excel­lent Asian stu­dents in my doc­toral courses, many of whom were Chi­nese. I have brought to this book, writ­ten in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Isabel Cam­poy, my appre­ci­a­tion for these stu­dents, some who became true friends, and the value I place on mul­ti­cul­tural friend­ships. It was a plea­sure to ask one of my for­mer stu­dents, Dr. Jan­ice Young, to review the book for cul­tural authenticity.

Many read­ers are intrigued about how two authors col­lab­o­rate to write a book. If you share this curios­ity you may enjoy read­ing how Isabel Cam­poy explains this expe­ri­ence in the chap­ter authored by her “Writ­ing in Col­lab­o­ra­tion: One plus One is One or Two” in the book Alma Flor Ada and You, vol­ume II pub­lished by Libraries Unlimited.

READERS’ RESPONSES

If you have enjoyed read­ing or shar­ing this book, I would very much like to hear from you. Please click here to send your comments.