Heavy Medal Mock Newbery Finalist: CHINESE MENU by Grace Lin
Introduction by Heavy Medal Award Committee Member Sabrina Ponce:
I said it once as a library student and I will say it again as a librarian: I would read anything by Grace Lin. With CHINESE MENU, Lin offers us a delectable feast of the history and folklore behind Chinese foods. The book is arranged like a menu with entries grouped into tea, appetizers, soup, sides, main dishes, and desserts. Readers can choose to only read the stories behind foods they may know like kung pao chicken, dumplings, and noodles, or they can read the book in its entirety and learn where dishes like Dragon and Phoenix and Crossing the Bridge Noodle Soup get their names. Having read the book in its entirety, I strongly encourage readers to do the same!
Grace Lin’s illustrations are a hallmark of her books in that they invite readers to visualize her settings. Therein lies the strength of CHINESE MENU. Readers are presented with a lesson in Chinese history in the same breath that they enjoy an illustrated story about a nine-tailed dog and learn the significance of the way certain names are spelled, as exemplified by the story about rice (125). By presenting an informative text in such a visual, piecemeal, and fun way, Grace Lin invites us not only to share in her personal experiences with these foods, but also to learn about their wider significance in the world today. As Lin writes in the story behind Dragon and Phoenix:
“…Chinese cuisine has a long history of fanciful names… because in the Chinese tradition, eating and dining were not simply something to fill one’s belly, but almost a ritualistic experience to savor and remember”
pg. 219
While the stories themselves are fun – a moment of silence to honor the bravery of the fried shrimp who fought for Green Dragon – they also present themes common in Chinese folklore and connect these themes, foods, and stories bit by bit to a history of China’s people. Lin invites readers to learn why staples like tea and rice are so important in Chinese cuisine and challenges readers to broaden their perception of Chinese food, as when she explains that the earliest Chinese restaurants established in the United States actually only served food from one area of China that was roughly the size of Boston (153). Thus, while Lin entertains young readers with stories about dragons, foolish emperors, wise advisers, and other characters, she also encourages them to expand what they already know about Chinese history and culture.
There is no doubt that Grace Lin created a masterful work with CHINESE MENU. But whether its concept, text, and style make it worthy of the Newbery is up to our readers to decide.
Heavy Medal Award Committee members and others are now invited to discuss this book further in the Comments section below. Let the Mock Newbery discussion begin!
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Filed under: Book Discussion, Heavy Medal Mock
About Emily Mroczek-Bayci
Emily Mroczek (Bayci) is a freelance children’s librarian in the Chicago suburbs. She served on the 2019 Newbery committee. You can reach her at emilyrmroczek@gmail.com.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
SLJ Blog Network
Surprise! Announcing 1000 HORSES FOR THE KING
Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Wee Winnie Witch’s Skinny by Virginia Hamilton, ill. Barry Moser
The Night Mother | This Week’s Comics
Talking with the Class of ’99 about Censorship at their School
In School Library Journal: Good Grief: Middle Grade Authors Normalize Loss
ADVERTISEMENT
She really soars with theme on this one—this is such a well woven together story. Her personal narrative at each chapter break makes this feel like so much more than a mythology or folklore compendium, and while she is a great artist, I feel like more so than others, this one is easy to see the text apart from the illustrations. The illustrations enhance but they do not dictate the story.
If the question is whether the concept and style are Newbery-worthy, this is sort of a throwback to nearly 100 years ago, when the medal was awarded back-to-back to a couple collections of myths/folk tales: 1925’s went to TALES FROM SILVER LANDS, which had stories from Latin America, and 1926’s went to SHEN OF THE SEA, which also did stories from China. Shen actually has its own chopsticks origin tale, different than the two Lin gives. (Granted, the medal and children’s literature have changed a lot in a century!)
Presentation is what really sticks out to me in this title- with the table of contents organized like an American-Style Chinese Menu, it really helps all of the sections flow together and connect!
I agree with Emily that presentation of Information is the strength of this book. CHINESE MENU starts with the Table of Contents separated into courses like a Chinese menu, then she presents a map of China with its provinces that orientates the reader to regions in China and then she has an illustrated timeline of foods presented in the book according to each dynasty that the reader can look back on when stories reference different dynasties. I felt that this beginning section gave a strong anchor for the reader to use throughout the book. I was impressed how well researched this book was with a fifteen page Bibliography, nine pages of Endnotes and an index. She even included her mother’s scallion Pancake recipe.
Grace Lin retells the myths legends or historical facts in an engaging way, yet she is mindful of her young audience especially since some of the stories are dark including poverty and death. I was impressed how she explained what an eunuch is on page 174. Lin is an exceptional storyteller! This book is informative about Chinese history and legends, and gives the reader a peek into Chinese culture. I found the stories fascinating as well as entertaining, and now I know the etiquette of eating with chopsticks and the legends about all the different types of teas, that I love to drink! This book in my opinion deserves a medal.
Zuò dé hǎo!
One of the most outstanding elements of Grace Lin’s Chinese Menu is her unique and original organization of material and writing style. I have never seen any books laid out in the same way as Lin’s CHINESE MENU. The integration of visual diagrams, stories, and personal writing is excellent.
Lin’s writing style is direct but vulnerable. For example, Lin’s vulnerability is highlighted on page 15 with an admission that chopsticks are tricky for her. “Confession time! I don’t use chopsticks correctly.” This personal writing style is highly unusual but also original and helps the reader connect with the writer more. After this admission, Liu takes the reader on a really well-organized trip to consider anthropology, history, and mythology surrounding the invention, development, and use of chopsticks.
The Illustrations are visual bridges, inviting the reader to open and discover what is next. They did a great job helping me engage with the culture from a fresh perspective. I kept thinking, ‘This is cool. This is the first time I have seen a book organized this way. Examples of Lin’s use of illustrations are on pages 16 and 17; there are drawings (“How to Use Your Chopsticks (Correctly)” and “Chopstick Taboos”) of proper and improper ways to use chopsticks to teach the reader how to handle a critical tool in Chinese culture.
As a student in my third year studying Chinese language at school, I appreciate the theme. Translating all the characters and learning more about Chinese culture was also fun. It expanded my curiosity and appreciation for the culture.
The mythology, archeology, and details tied things together, turning non-fiction writing into a story. As a person who likes food, I just was hungry. This book wins for the most post-it notes in the margin, bookmarking the food I want to try. Learning about the food I love’s backstory and meals I have yet to hear of was unusual in a Children’s book, but I liked it. I will savor Chinese food differently in the future, even if I still need to hold my chopstick correctly.
I can’t think of a Newbery winner that is similar to this book, so I am glad it is part of the discussion.
Food is so much more than just the items on our plates – it’s history, tradition, superstition, memory, culture, religion, heritage, conflict, pride, family. CHINESE MENU captures all of this and more, seamlessly weaving together deeply personal stories of her mom’s cooking and sweeping epics of emperors, dragons, and heroes. Through individual dishes common on Chinese restaurants in the United States, Lin explores language, immigration, globalization (past and present), and more. Given the millennia of Chinese history and culture, it’s an impressive task!
Like others here, I was deeply impressed with the organization of the text – the menu schema provides a unifying framework. Unlike most collections of folktales, I think readers would lose something if they read this out of order.
As a nonfiction buff, I particularly enjoyed Lin’s endnotes where she details the changes made in her retellings of these stories and the bibliography for curious readers to learn more.
I grabbed Chinese Menu off my TBR shelf right before reading this post and now I’m more excited to crack open the book! Lin’s writing and the way she integrates her culture and personal experiences makes every one of her books meaningful and enjoyable to read. I particularly love the fact that readers can pick and choose from the “menu” to only read the histories they’re interested in. This feels like a book one could enjoy at their leisure, gleaning information about food, history, folklore, and Lin with each entry they read. Definitely an interesting pick for Newbery.
I had to stop reading this book when I was hungry….because I wanted to be sitting down to a delicious Chinese feast (and Idaho does not have good Chinese).
I absolutely LOVE how Grace Lin organized this book. It flows like a menu. You get more and more appreciation for each dish with the stories, the research, the illustrations that are found within. (Still can’t hold chopsticks correctly. Or at all)
However, do I think this book fits for Newbery? I’m unsure….Does it fit under Sibert? Again unsure. I find this book an interesting choice but I want it to win something
I really appreciate the previous thoughts on this book and I agree with many of those positive comments. I wanted to add that I really appreciated the extensive back matter in this book included a very long works cited list. It shows me the amount of love and dedication that Grace Lin puts into her writing. The format, the stories, and the pictures also reflect this love!
I agree with others that this collection of tales was presented beautifully, and I love the inclusion of all the back matter, including the recipe. But what stood out to me the most was Lin’s willingness to admit that often, we don’t and can’t know the “real” story, so she offers the ones she has found, and chooses her favorite(s)! Her personable attitude makes this hefty text more approachable and less intimidating for young readers.
I am very impressed with this title. The presentation of information is done in such a conversational, friendly way and while this could have just been a fun book about food, she excelled at placing the information in historical, geographic, and cultural context. I especially appreciated how she didn’t shy away from some rather tough material while still conveying the information in an age-appropriate way (ex. delicately sharing the story of the monk who gouges his eyes out, skillfully describing what a eunich is without giving too much info, explaining that Chinese restaurants may have started serving fortune cookies after Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps, and acknowledging the racism of rising anti-Asian sentiment during COVID).