January 22nd was Lunar New Year and we welcomed in The Year of the Rabbit! You can experience Lunar New Year with books, graphic novels, movies, and more from the collection at WNPL!
Here are a few titles we recommend for learning more about lunar new year traditions and The Year of the Rabbit:
Katie Chin is an Asian food expert, cookbook author, tv host, food blogger, and mom. Her Global Family Cookbook includes holiday meals and traditions from all over the world, including Lunar New Year! Katie Chin shows you how easy it is to prepare new and exciting meals from many cultures. Discover comfort food from around the world, and add some international flair to your dinner table.
Chloe’s Lunar New Year by Lily Lamotte & Michelle Lee – CoCo’s Cove (E LaMotte)
It’s almost Lunar New Year, and Chloe can’t wait to celebrate! But first, Chloe and her family must prepare for the new year. They buy new shoes, lay out good-luck oranges in a bowl, decorate the red envelope, and make a crispy turnip cake. Everyone comes together to cook a fantastic feast, saving a plate for A-má, of course. Chloe enjoys the festive celebration and yummy food, but most of all, she loves spending time with her family.
Tray of Togetherness by Flo Leung – Main Library – Juvenile Holiday Fiction
A little girl and her family are hosting a New Year party, an event marking the Lunar New Year. There’s a lot to do before the guests arrive! First, a trip to the market to fill up the Tray of Togetherness, a special candy box for the partygoers. Each of the eight lucky snacks in the Tray has an auspicious meaning: peanuts for a long life, pistachios for happiness, candied coconut for strong family ties…As the family returns home, they pass out delicious good wishes to the friends and neighbors they meet along the way.
Eye Level : Poems by Jenny Xie – Adult Non-fiction (811.6 XIE)
Jenny Xie’s award-winning debut, Eye Level, takes us far and near, to Phnom Penh, Corfu, Hanoi, New York, and elsewhere, as we travel closer and closer to the acutely felt solitude that centers this searching, moving collection. Animated by a restless inner questioning, these poems meditate on the forces that moor the self and set it in motion, from immigration to travel to estranging losses and departures. Xie’s peom about Lunar New Year, 1988 is a beautifully descriptive account of her own experience with the holiday.
Year of the Rabbit tells the true story of one family’s desperate struggle to survive the murderous reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized power in the capital city of Phnom Penh. Immediately after declaring victory in the war, they set about evacuating the country’s major cities with the brutal ruthlessness and disregard for humanity that characterized the regime ultimately responsible for the deaths of one million citizens. 48 years later, as we once again enter The Year of the Rabbit on the lunar zodiac, this book serves as an important reminder of the freedoms and principles we hold dear and the things we cannot take for granted.
Find these titles and many more at the Warren-Newport Public Library. We hope to see you here and Happy New Year!