Skip to main content

My Chinatown: One Year in Poems

My Chinatown: One Year in Poems

Written and Illustrated by Kam Mak

Overview: This is a poem about a little boy who left his hometown of Hong Kong and is now in America living in a Chinatown. This poem is separated into four sections, one for each season: winter, spring, summer, and fall. In each section, the little boy describes what he is doing during that time and how it is similar, but different from his life back in Hong Kong. From pickling kumquats to lighting paper lanterns, the little boy learns to love his new Chinatown when New Year's Day comes around.
This book uses a mixture of photographs and realistic drawings for the pictures. They take up full pages and display beautiful aspects of Chinese culture and celebrations. This is a longer book, but is helpful to gain insight into the spirit of Chinatown. I would recommend this to 4th-5th graders.

To order your own copy: https://www.amazon.com/My-Chinatown-One-Year-Poems/dp/0064437329/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1512017384&sr=1-1&keywords=My+Chinatown%3A+One+Year+in+Poems

-The Green Eyed Reader

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tar Beach

Tar Beach Written & Illustrated Faith Ringgold Overview: This is a beautiful quilt story about a girl who lies on her "tar beach," her rooftop, with her family. She talks about how her father is a construction worker and looks for new work for lengthy amounts of time. The little girl decides that she is going to fly over the union building, the ice cream factory and a great bridge so that they will be hers forever. I believe that she means this in a figurative manner, in a sort of dream. She takes her little brother with her at the end and they fly with their eyes closed.  The paintings in this book have an unclean, but beautiful nature to them. This book provokes deep thinking and even has some historical events in it that would be great to explain to a classroom. 2nd graders would enjoy reading this book by themselves.   To order your own copy:  https://www.amazon.com/Tar-Beach-Faith-Ringgold/dp/0517885441/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1512013031&a

Mice Squeak, We Speak

Mice Squeak, We Speak Written by Arnold L. Shapiro & Illustrated by Tomie dePaola Overview: This short book is a rhyming poem that features many different animals and how they communicate. "Cats purr. Lions roar. Owls hoot." But then the text explains that humans, children specifically, speak, say, and talk. Many other animals are mentioned as well, such as cows, ducks, horses, chickens, and many others. This book is perfect for read alouds for PreK-1st grade. Kindergarteners could probably read this on their own with some help. The illustrations are really fun and feature each animal speaking their "language." To order your own copy:  https://www.amazon.com/Mice-Squeak-Speak-Arnold-Shapiro/dp/0698118731/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1512014220&sr=1-1&keywords=mice+squeak+we+speak -The Green Eyed Reader

Too Many Tamales

Too Many Tamales Written by Gary Soto & Illustrated by Ed Martinez Overview: During one Christmas Eve, Maria was helping her mother make tamales and she put on her mother's ring because she admired it so much. Without another thought, she went back to work on needing the masa . After the tamales were finished, her cousins arrived and she began to spend time with them. All of a sudden, she realized that the ring was not on her hand anymore and it must be in the tamales! She ran down the stairs with her cousins and made them eat all 24 of them to find the ring! When it was not found, she went to tell her mother the terrible news. However, when she approached her, she saw the ring on her hand! Maria was relieved and her and her aunts and her mother set to work making a new batch of tamales.    This story has an illustration on almost every page and it is an exciting one! Young readers will want to finish this story to the end so it is a great idea to read it aloud. 3rd gr