Exploring Chinatown: A Children's Guide to Chinese Culture

Tours the sights of Chinatown in San Francisco, which serve as a backdrop to the exploration of Chinese culture, language, pastimes, and daily life.

Grade 4-8-Stepanchuk uses San Francisco's Chinatown as a stepping stone to introduce various aspects of Chinese culture. Chapters, each beginning with a proverb, quotation, or traditional saying in both Chinese and English, cover such topics as food, health, reading and writing, numbers, celebrations, family, religion, and the visual and performing arts. A visit to a shop, for example, leads to clearly written and illustrated descriptions of the abacus, lucky numbers, tangrams, and Chinese chess. Seeing Chinese-language materials and visiting a stationery store prompts a lengthy look at the written and spoken language, with excellent coverage on the correct way to hold a brush and form a Chinese character. Boxed sidebars expand the information. Several recipes are included, and the appendix offers thumbnail sketches of other Chinatowns in the U.S. and Canada. The handsome, open layout features colorful, cartoonlike, although somewhat prosaic illustrations, full-color photographs, and line drawings. There are a few minor errors, such as misspellings of "shiitake," "suona," and author Ann Tompert's name, but these are minor quibbles in what is otherwise a fine introduction to Chinatown and Chinese culture.
Diane S. Marton, Arlington County Library, VA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Exploring Chinatown: A Children's Guide to Chinese Culture by Carol Stepanchuk, illus. by Leland Wong, uses San Francisco's Chinatown as a backdrop in this informative volume covering varied aspects of Chinese-American life. Sections on food, health, religion, art and more are included. Ages 10-up
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 4-8. This "cultural tour of Chinatown" focuses on San Francisco's Chinatown but includes the sights and sounds of other Chinatowns, too. The tour begins with food and table manners and ends with opera and musical instruments. In between, there's information about herb shops, acupuncture, the Chinese language and calligraphy, numbers and counting systems, holidays and festivals, family and religious life, brush art, theater, and martial arts. Chinese American customs are also identified. For example, the Chinese-American New Year's parade is differentiated from the Chinese observation of the New Year. Sidebars feature proverbs, history, and cultural facts. Recipes, instructions for lion dancing and advice on brush painting invite children's participation. Colorful photographs, diagrams, paintings, and sketches frame each page, often supplying visual explanations for such subjects as the abacus. The appendix notes other U.S and Canadian Chinatowns and includes bibliographies on San Francisco's Chinatown and Chinese culture. Chock full of clear, hard-to-find information on Chinese culture, this attractive guide will supplement multicultural studies and fill a gap in most libraries. Linda Perkins
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