Welcoming the Lunar New Year: Celebrate & Make

An interesting book to help many to celebrate Lunar New Year. Welcoming the Lunar New Year: Celebrate & Make would be a great addition to any family home to help to raise awareness and build experiences of different celebrations and cultures around the world. It would also be a brilliant book to have in any KS1 classroom in a school; it's incredibly informative whilst being presented in a child-friendly, narrative format.

Welcoming the Lunar New Year tells the story of Ren and his family preparing for and celebrating Lunar New Year. It shows some of the traditions that are crucial to their celebrations and some of the things that make it so special. The illustrations give context to some of the less common vocabulary that is used in the story, such as some of the foods that are eaten and decorations that are used. I would have liked to see a glossary that children could refer to to check the meaning of any unfamiliar words.

My favourite spread is the picture of the whole family sharing their special meal together. It depicts the closeness of sharing food with your loved ones and has some great illustrations of all of the different foods they are enjoying together.

At the back of the book, there's a creative section for children to get involved and create their own traditional celebrations. These include a recipe to make chinese peanut cookies as well as step by step instructions to make a Lunar New Year dragon. Both of them include clearly organised instructions with helpful pictures for each step. This will help slightly older children to have a go at being more independent with either of these tasks.

Picture book / Reviewed by Lucy Hopkins, teacher

Suggested Reading Age 5+