{"id":34477,"date":"2014-09-09T10:44:40","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T14:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=34477"},"modified":"2014-09-09T11:01:05","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T15:01:05","slug":"mei-meis-lucky-birthday-noodles-a-loving-story-of-adoption-chinese-culture-and-a-special-birthday-treat-by-shan-shan-chen-illustrated-by-heidi-goodman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/mei-meis-lucky-birthday-noodles-a-loving-story-of-adoption-chinese-culture-and-a-special-birthday-treat-by-shan-shan-chen-illustrated-by-heidi-goodman\/","title":{"rendered":"Mei-Mei’s Lucky Birthday Noodles: A Loving Story of Adoption, Chinese Culture and a Special Birthday Treat by Shan-Shan Chen, illustrated by Heidi Goodman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mei-Mei's<\/a>“Today is Mei-Mei’s birthday. She\u00a0is turning six years old,” the first double-page spread announces.\u00a0Well … sort of. “‘This is the day you and Daddy brought me home from China so we could be a family!'” Mei-Mei\u00a0reminisces as she wakes her\u00a0parents … which means what the family is calling her\u00a0‘birthday’ can’t be her actual natal day. Given the legal logistics, the adoption of a Chinese baby on the day of his\/her actual birth by a foreign couple\u00a0is highly improbable. Meanwhile,\u00a0the corresponding illustration depicts a swaddled Mei-Mei\u00a0in the lap of a parent in an\u00a0airplane window seat. Since she couldn’t have been a newborn then but was\u00a0still a baby, this ‘birthday’ is more a homecoming anniversary. Details, details, I know!<\/p>\n

So the story continues … and Mei-Mei brushes her teeth, washes her face, then gets dressed in “her beautiful new dress … which makes her feel like a princess.” In her party finery, Mei-Mei goes straight to\u00a0the kitchen to help her mother make “good luck noodles” in honor of her Chinese culture: “it is a tradition to eat noodles when celebrating a birthday.” As careful and tidy as a six-year-old might be, helping her mother make\u00a0a many-step stir-fried meat, veggie, noodle dish without risking the fate of her festive garb\u00a0seems unlikely. Details again?<\/p>\n

As soon as the “chow mien”\u00a0is ready, Mei-Mei’s well-wishers arrive, including Nai-Nai and Yei-Yei who hand Mei-Mei a\u00a0traditional red envelope. Will most readers know that\u00a0Nai-Nai and Yei-Yei are Mei-Mei’s father’s parents?\u00a0[And does it seem odd that Mei-Mei’s father never reappears after the initial morning hug?] Would Mei-Mei call her presumably non-Chinese grandparents by their informal Chinese titles?\u00a0In the meantime, the meal is happily in progress, although too quickly\u00a0Mei-Mei announces, “Today was a great day,” as the book\u00a0ends. That ‘was’ implies\u00a0that the day is over, right? But\u00a0does that compute?\u00a0An hour max to get from bed to kitchen, 35 minutes (according to the kid-friendly recipe at book’s end) to prepare and cook, about two hours to\u00a0party-hearty, and then maybe it’s 11 or noon by then …? Dare I ask … what’s for lunch?<\/p>\n

Call me picky, but the details clearly don’t seem to fit together here. Timing is arbitrary at best, from Mei-Mei’s actual birthday, to the party time (late breakfast gathering? and can a 6-year-old go for that long from wake-up time without even a snack?), to the ‘great day’ that’s over in a flash.<\/p>\n

In her “Introduction,” author Shan-Shan Chen (her name is hyphenated on the cover, but not on the inside copyright and ending “Acknowledgements” pages \u2013 details again?) celebrates “different races coming together to become one blended family.”\u00a0Heartfelt intentions are surely admirable, but narrative execution here is\u00a0disappointing: preparing for a birthday party with the majority\u00a0of the pages devoted to the step-by-step making of a\u00a0single dish just isn’t\u00a0much of a story.\u00a0Ironically, that\u00a0celebration of multi-culti families isn’t particularly\u00a0reflected by\u00a0artist Heidi Goodman who presents the few adults via a couple of pale\u00a0body parts (a mother’s neck, a grandparent’s hand) within the story, although the back cover at least is\u00a0a happy family portrait; so, too, Goodman\u00a0misses\u00a0an easy, obvious\u00a0opportunity to be more diversely\u00a0inclusive by depicting only Caucasian birthday guests\u00a0for Mei-Mei.<\/p>\n

“This book was written to foster an interest in cooking among a younger group of children through a story rather than a cookbook,” Shen explains. That said,\u00a0her toothsome meal could certainly have benefited with a re-distribution of the main ingredients. A little less time in the kitchen would surely have proven\u00a0more enjoyable for her readers.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Children<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Today is Mei-Mei’s birthday. She\u00a0is turning six years old,” the first double-page spread announces.\u00a0Well … sort of. “‘This is the day you and Daddy brought me home from China so we could be a family!’” Mei-Mei\u00a0reminisces as she wakes her\u00a0parents … which means what the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,21,6],"tags":[82,6608,59,109,5945,111,5946,5944],"class_list":["post-34477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-children-picture-books","category-chinese-american","category-fiction","tag-adoption","tag-bookdragon","tag-cultural-exploration","tag-food","tag-heidi-goodman","tag-how-to","tag-mei-meis-lucky-birthday-noodles","tag-shan-shan-chen"],"yoast_head":"\nMei-Mei's Lucky Birthday Noodles: A Loving Story of Adoption, Chinese Culture and a Special Birthday Treat by Shan-Shan Chen, illustrated by Heidi Goodman - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/mei-meis-lucky-birthday-noodles-a-loving-story-of-adoption-chinese-culture-and-a-special-birthday-treat-by-shan-shan-chen-illustrated-by-heidi-goodman\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mei-Mei's Lucky Birthday Noodles: A Loving Story of Adoption, Chinese Culture and a Special Birthday Treat by Shan-Shan Chen, illustrated by Heidi Goodman - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"“Today is Mei-Mei’s birthday. 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