Celebrating Asian Heritage Month 2023
May is Asian Heritage Month in Canada. This year's theme is 'celebrating a legacy of greatness.' In that spirit, here are eight great kids' titles by Asian-Canadian creators, as shared on CTV Your Morning on May 2nd, 2023.
Picture Books, Ages 3-7
Welcome, Rain! is a jubilant celebration of rain featuring art by Christine Wei. It follows a child’s changing emotions and attitudes towards rainy weather, ultimately encouraging kids to get outside. As a child and Chinese immigrant living in Canada, author-illustrator Jack Wong had complicated and conflicted feelings about swimming, which eventually lead to his picture book When You Can Swim, a poetic and wide-ranging exploration of the many places one can swim and the connection between people and water. Young children are taught to point out shapes, which is how The Shape of You begins (our door is a rectangle, our table is a square), but the discussion of shapes becomes more philosophical and poetic as the story goes on, ending on the comforting note that the shape of my heart is you. Parents will love the tender message and kids will enjoy poring over Miki Sato’s cut paper collage illustrations.
Chapter Books, Ages 5-9
The Party Diaries is a series of books that chronicles the ideas and events hosted by South East Asian party-planner Priya. The design of these book is bright, colourful and features a lot of illustration, which makes this an excellent bridge book for kids starting to read and moving away from picture books. TheMystery of the Painted Fan is the third book in The Nguyen Kids series, which explores Vietnamese culture from the perspective of the Nguyen siblings. Each sibling inherits an object from their grandmother that has a magical ability. In this latest book, hockey-loving Jacob loves pink and wants to perform the Lunar New Year dance with his sisters and cousins, but when these ideas are met with resistance, he wonders if he is brave enough to be who he really is.
Middle Grade, Ages 9-12
No Place Like Home is every book-lovers fantasy: becoming a character in their favourite story. Lan has recently immigrated from Vietnam to Toronto and is finding it challenging, but in the fictional world of Silva, she is a powerful and needed force for good. In The Scroll of Chaos, two sisters are transported to a realm where Chinese legends come to life. Woven among the action and adventure of the Chinese fairytales is a tender story about a family coping with their mother’s depression. The Unlovable Alina Butt chronicles Alina’s attempts to fit into a new school in England. Her last name is a source of mirth for her classmates, but eventually she finds a core group of friends and even works up the courage to try out for the school play, Cinderella.