Lion Dancer: Ernie Wan's Chinese New Year

If you have small children,their first encounter with the lion can be the stuff bad dreams are made of. Our 16-month-old son was both frightened and intrigued by the lion that came to the Chinese restaurant where our friends' son was enjoying his first birthday. The book follows Ernie Wan through his preparation to his first lion dance one Chinese New Year's day in New York's Chinatown. You see the customs and rituals that lead up to his debut. More important, you see the closeness of his family and the value of rites of passage in gathering people together. My family is not Chinese but my wife and I have immigrant parents. If you are trying to demonstrate why maintaining your cultural heritage is worthwhile, Lion Dancer will support your cause. My son literally drools on the pictures of the Chinese dishes and the kung-fu kicks of the lions amid the firecracker smoke. If I have a single criticism, it's that the pages of this paperback will fall out after repeated reading. And if I'm entitled to menion one mature indulgence, the book includes a section describing the personalities of the various animals in the Chinese lunar year. You might agree that the year you were born is more telling than the month.

This is a great non-fiction about Chinese New Year, for ages 4-12! The text is simple enough for younger children and detailed enough to really be informative for older children. Following a young child through his preparations for the celebration immediately brings young readers (and listeners)into the story. Vivid photographs of familiar and novel scenes help children to relate to Ernie Wan while learning about a significant aspect of his culture. Rather than lecturing the reader, this book invites the reader to share in one boy's celebration of the Chinese New Year while teaching about the holiday at the same time. This book has been well-loved by my children (now ages 8, 10, 12) for many years. We are now on our second copy of the book! It comes out every Chinese New Year, and even some other times through out the year. My children often ask to take this book to school to share at Chinese New Year. (Bonus: inside the back cover is an explanation of the Chinese zodiac with years and personality traits.)

Follow Ernie Wan and his family throughout a traditional Chinese (Cantonese) New Year Celebration! Colorful photos and detailed text provide good insight to a fascinating and beautiful culture! Photos of New York's Chinatown and Chinese schools are accompanied by cultural facts. From kung fu school to New Year traditions, this book is more than I expected. The Lion Dance is covered very well, but is certainly not the sole topic of this outstanding book! Ages 4 and up. For my preschool class, I am pairing this book with an 11' long paper dragon and a stuffed dragon puppet. The children will be making paper lanterns and sampling various Chinese foods. They should really enjoy the unit on Chinese New Year! Gung-Hey-Fat-Choy! Happy New Year!

I thought the book was very interesting with wonderful pictures for children to look at. Despite being written for children to enjoy, it gave some insight to anyone, curious about this aspect of Chinese culture.

This book is one of my favorite books for Chinese New Year celebration. The authors successfully capture the lively and warm atmosphere of New Year celebrating among Chinese. Through the realistic photograph as well as the text, the authors show readers the custom of the Chinese New Year, such as offering food and incense at the altar and wearing new clothes in New Year. In addition, the authors also appendix the Chinese horoscope to the end of the book. The Chinese horoscope is an important part of the Chinese culture and is still widely used among the Chinese community. The Chinese characters in the horoscope are also written correctly and beautifully in Chinese paint brush to represent the artistic aspect of Chinese writing system.