by Dane Liu (Author) Shinyeon Moon (Illustrator)
Millie loves to help LaoLao cook, especially her favorite dish. Dumplings! They gather fresh ingredients from Chinatown.
Chives from Auntie Lim, shrimp from Uncle Lee, and juicy, fragrant lychees that make their days together so sweet. As the seasons change, LaoLao feels more and more tired, too tired to make dumplings. But can Millie make them without LaoLao? And will her dumplings come out delicious, and make LaoLao happy, too?
Full of humor, heart, and wholly original illustrations, this story is a timeless celebration of family, food, community, and the different ways we share love.
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A grandchild takes on a cultural culinary tradition in this quietly moving tale about intergenerational and community bonds. One spring day during a visit with Laolao, young narrator Millie, who's of Chinese descent, requests dumplings, and the two take the subway to Chinatown for ingredients. There, Laolao knows every vendor, and animated garlic chives and lychee appear to dance in the air. At home, the two work together, an act that reprises as Laolao, who has begun to move slowly, "tells me all the steps to her best dishes" and one day gives Millie her rolling pin. When Laolao requests dumplings, Millie heads to Chinatown to buy groceries from the woman's extended community, discovering a ripple effect of caring and connection. Moon's highly detailed, thin-lined digital illustrations capture the bustle of Chinatown and the sensory details of creating dumplings as a grandparent's knowledge in turn becomes a way of caring for her. A dumpling recipe concludes. Ages 4-8. (Dec.)
Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.K-Gr 2--Readers will savor the vivid illustrations that depict the loving connections between family and community, as shared through the makings of a dish of homemade dumplings. A girl named Millie loves spending time cooking with Laolao, her maternal grandmother, who teaches her delicious recipes and takes her on grocery shopping trips through their local, busy Chinatown. The lively descriptions of a shopping trip and subsequent cooking showcase a heartfelt regard for the tradition of making and sharing dumplings with loved ones, as does the cultural practice of calling close friends and neighbors "aunt" or "uncle" to honor the close connections. Readers will appreciate the flow of the story that repeats its cycle of events as Millie and her parents make their own dumplings to bring to Laolao when she becomes tired. In the wake of Laolao's declining health, the community rallies to her side, and Millie draws on her coveted memories of Laolao's dumplings to prepare the dish for her, with her parents' help. There is little exploration of Millie's emotional response to these changes; readers who feel distress about Laolao's decline may benefit from guidance that strengthens their understanding of the family and friends' actions to support and honor the older woman. Moon's digital artwork presents striking compositions full of bold outlines and highly saturated colors filling the forms of diverse characters, as well as the details in Laolao's kitchen and the streets of Chinatown. VERDICT Strong colors and precise lines abound across the pages of this story about family and community support, inspired by a food that fills the heart.--Rachel Mulligan
Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.Dane Liu loves dumplings, especially ones made by her Mama and her kids. Dumplings also deliciously appear in her debut picture book Friends are Friends, Forever, which is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, a Kids' Indie Next Pick, and a Best Book of the Year (Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books).
Shin Yeon Moon is a New York based illustrator. She received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, where she now teaches. Her work has garnered accolades from esteemed illustration publications including Society of Illustrators and Communication Arts.