Fun books for China Unit

I'm taking a class on Children's Literature this semester, and I just finished a group project where we created a lesson about Chinese culture. It was lots of fun, and I found some great books to go along with a lesson on China. I thought I'd share because I enjoyed the books so much!

Seven Chinese Sisters by Kathy Tucker-- This is one of my new favorite books. There are seven sisters who each have a special ability. Six of the sisters have to save their baby sister from a dragon. The illustrations are bright and exciting. This is a fun book. I think preschool through ages seven or eight would enjoy this picture book.

Long-Long's New Year by Catherine Gower-- In this book a boy goes with his grandfather to sell cabbages in the market. They have to sell the cabbages to earn money to buy food and treats for the family's Spring Festival celebration. The illustrations are very unique. They are created on a brown textured paper, so there is brown instead of white where there is no paint. The details in the illustrations are wonderful. My girls enjoyed looking closely at all of the people and activities in the illustrations. The illustrations were my favorite part of this book.

Yeh-Shen: A Chinese Cinderella Story by Ai-Ling Louie- This book is fun for children who are familiar with the fairy tale version of Cinderella. There are many similarities as well as differences, so this is a fun book to read and allow children to compare and contrast with the fairy tale.

The Moon Lady by Amy Tan-- This is another book with beautiful illustrations. In this story a grandmother tells her granddaughters a story that happened to her as a little girl on the night of the Moon Festival. This has lovely illustrations of traditional clothing, especially for special celebrations.

These books can be used with nonfiction books about China to learn more about the culture, or they can just be enjoyed as great picture books! At the beginning of this school year, along with our unit study on China, my daughters and I made homemade paper in our blender (I Google searched a recipe online), and then we looked up the Chinese characters for family and love to paint on the paper. It was a fun activity. (FYI--something I learned this year--Papyrus was the first paper invented by Egyptians, but paper that is more like we know it was invented in China)