Celebrate the lunar Year of the Water Dragon with Ying Chang Compestine's latest picture book which reminds us all again (gently and poignantly) about the value of patience and perseverance (especially relevant in this Dragon year!), the wisdom of elders, and the importance of cultural connections. Ming...
To commemorate a dear friend's birthday, today's title had certain content requirements: something about a new year, obedient children (every parent's dream-birthday wish!), delicious food, giggly humor, all wrapped up in colorful packaging. Thankfully,...
Even though the back of the galley says Compestine's latest title is for "Ages 12 and up," I'd definitely recommend saving it for much older readers. These are some of the most realistically gruesome tales outside of Halloween, not to mention dealing with more adult...
Missing his usual buckets of left-out food (garbage, unbeknownst to him), a hungry Beijing ghost happens upon a plump little boy out too late with his lantern. The ghost traps his tasty morsel, hurries home, thinking he's going to have a special feast. But the...
Best known for her highly entertaining picture books (The Runaway Rice Cake, The Real Story of Stone Soup), Compestine enters the young adult market with a story that draws on her own childhood during the crushing...
One too many uses of what my kids call ‘the s-word” – as in ‘stupid’ – somewhat mars an otherwise entertaining tongue-in-cheek version of an age-old tale, this time narrated by a Chinese fisherman and his...
Currently my children's favorite book, Ying Chang Compestine's delightfully entertaining Runaway Rice Cake an Asianized, expanded version of the Gingerbread Man tale, in which the hungry Chang family finally catches...
