Chinatown

by William Low, William Low (Illustrator)

Overview

Chinatown. City within a city. Home to street cobblers and herbalists, tai chi masters and kung fu students, outdoor fish markets and lots and lots of restaurants. And best of all, when the Chinese New Year begins there's a New Year's Day parade, complete with a lion dance.

Young readers will be equally fascinated by the tour of this colorful neighborhood—and by their tour guide and his grandma who live there.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250846587
Publisher:	Square Fish
Publication date:	12/05/2023
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	1,137,071
Product dimensions:	10.70(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.10(d)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

William Low is the illustrator of Stargone John by Ellen Kindt McKenzie, Lily by Abigail Thomas, and Good Morning City by Elaine Moore. A graduate of the Parsons School of Design and a four-time winner of the Society of Illustrators silver medal, Mr. Low now teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, not too far from Chinatown. He lives with his wife, illustrator Margaret Hewitt, on Long Island, New York.

Editorial Reviews

PreS-Gr 2In Chinatown, a young boy goes for a walk with his grandmother and describes the sights and the people on the busy streets. Delivery trucks, tai chi students, ducks hanging in the food store, fresh snapping crabs, and crowds watching the Chinese New Year celebration are vividly brought to life in full-page, vibrant oil paintings. This is a warm introduction to an urban community that captures images of interest to a child, from a child's perspective. The text reads aloud nicely, making this title useful for picture-book programs. While the setting is New York City's Chinatown, the stores, signs, and activities could be in any Chinese community across the U.S.Susan Pine, New York Public Library

School Library Journal

A fictionalized walking tour of New York's Chinatown at the time of the New Year celebration, conducted by a young Chinese- American boy and his grandmother. Together they make their way through the crowded, colorful streets, into shops and restaurants, and past street vendors. They watch the traditional New Year's Day parade and lion dance, and wish each other "Gung hay fat choy." Low's full-bleed oil paintings glow with red, gold, green, and turquoise; as is true of Low's work for Elaine Moore's Good Morning, City (1995), the pages are full of atmospheric lighting effects, as when morning sun first strikes the upper stories of the buildings, then streams through a window into the dark, dusty interior of an herbal shop, or when flames leap beneath a huge restaurant wok, or firecrackers spark and jump about the great tossing head of the New Year's lion. Readers will enjoy comparing Low's paintings with some similar scenes (roasted ducks hanging in a restaurant window, an open-air fishmonger, youngsters training in a kung fu studio, the squat black drum and colorful banners in the parade) photographed by Martha Cooper for Kate Waters's Lion Dancer

Kirkus Reviews