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10 Jul / The Year of the Book by Andrea Cheng, illustrated by Abigail Halpin

Year of the BookFourth-grader Anna Wang is going through those tortuous tween years. Her longtime best friend Laura is busy chasing after Abigail and Lucy who have more social clout. She’s uncomfortable admitting to friends that her mother cleans homes in “one of those high rises … [w]ith a view of the river” while she’s studying to become a nurse. She wouldn’t mind changing her last name to Anna Brown or Anna Smith, although she realizes that “then my face wouldn’t match my name.” She can’t understand Teacher Zhen in Chinese school and isn’t so thrilled with going to class anyway.

What saves Anna from tough times are books. From My Side of the Mountain to From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler to My Louisiana Sky, Anna is – most of the time – pretty content with her literary companionship. She also keeps some great human company with Ray the crossing guard, Ms. Simmons her teacher, Mr. Shepherd whose apartment her mother cleans on Saturdays, and her new friend Camille at Chinese school. And, in spite of Laura’s fair-weather mistakes, Anna at least realizes (with a bit of nudging from her mother) the importance of being a good friend.

Andrea Cheng, who’s written over a dozen titles for young readers, tells another heartfelt story of growing up Chinese American. Abigail Halpin‘s lithe, whimsical line drawings add just the right feel to Cheng’s sincere, honest words. Although Cheng herself is the child of Hungarian immigrant parents, she’s been APA by affiliation for decades – her husband is Chinese American, their children hapa – and has written multiple books featuring convincing, spunky Chinese American protagonists. In spite of my high regard for Cheng’s work, I admit to being disappointed in finding errors here in her latest, even before the story starts; while I don’t speak Chinese, my aging brain has retained enough kanji from my almost-PhD (in East Asian Literatures and Languages) to recognize Chinese writing mistakes…

At the bottom of the “Pronunciation Guide,” for example, are two characters for ‘happiness’ – or ‘xing fu (幸福).’ Where the first character ‘幸’ should be, is instead “FU” written in English so scrawled as to seemingly (strangely) be mistaken for a Chinese character.  On page 43, the three Chinese words should be translated as ‘pumpkin, black cat, witch’ to match the characters above (which are currently listed erroneously as ‘witch, pumpkin, black cat’).

Do these errors (and no, I didn’t scour the rest of the Chinese characters throughout the book) affect the quality of story? Probably not. Will most readers notice? Again, probably not … unless, like Anna, they, too, are going to Chinese school and working hard to learn their characters (what irony!). That said, given Cheng’s own literary stature, surely her editors could have found one person among over a billion native speakers (and readers) of Chinese to do a quick check …?

Am I wrong to expect this much? I’m just saying …

For more of Cheng’s noteworthy titles on BookDragon, click here.

Readers: Middle Grade

Published: 2012

By Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Chinese American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers Tags > Abigail Halpin, Andrea Cheng, BookDragon, Bullying, Family, Friendship, Mother/daughter relationship, Parent/child relationship, School challenges, Series, Series: Anna Wang, Year of the Book
6 Comments
  • Pingback:The Year of the Book | Sturdy For Common Things Reply
  • Joy Chu

    I’m relieved to hear someone point this out. My own mother finds these careless errors via American publishers (why aren’t they as conscientious with these details as they are with American English text) just a little too often.

    Reply
    • SI BookDragon

      Mommies know best, huh? SOOOO frustrating indeed! Although, I think I’ve found plenty of careless errors in American English AND British English. And it used to be that U.S. editions of British titles would render some of the grammar into American English (use periods in Mr., Mrs., change ‘theatre’ to ‘theater,’ move commas and periods inside quotes, etc.), but that happens less and less. Silly that we had such different grammar rules in the first place, but quite a statement that publishers aren’t even bothering with such details anymore …

      Do please thank Mommy for being vigilant in her reading … we need more readers like her!

      Thanks so much for visiting BookDragon. Come back soon!

      Reply
      • Joy Chu

        In my part of the country (San Diego region), more and more grade school kids are learning Mandarin. Amazing to walk into the children’s section of my local library to witness a table-full of non-Asian 6-year-olds being led by a native speaker. I suspect eventually more of these future readers will report such errors. Well, maybe!

        Reply
        • SI BookDragon

          Hope springs eternal, huh? Mandarin and Arabic are two languages that more kids are going to be studying — at least need to be studying in this fast-changing world they’ll soon be inheriting.

          DC actually has a Chinese language immersion school — the Washington Yu Ying Public Charter School. Fairfax County in Virginia has a Japanese language partial immersion elementary school, in addition to the more expected French, German, and Spanish immersion programs … so things are changing most definitely. Again, hope springs eternal!

          If I could go back and make better choices as a child/teenager, I would never have let my mother let me quit Korean school (or piano, for that matter … what was I saying about Mommies knowing best, ahem?). And I would definitely have taken advantage of more live-in linguistic opportunities. Even with so-called advanced degrees in various languages, I feel woefully ill-equipped to really communicate in any language besides English. Alas, alas …

          Reply
  • Pingback:Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet by Andrea Cheng, woodcuts by the author | BookDragon Reply

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