From Kirkus Reviews
A fictionalized walking tour of New York's Chinatown at the time of the New Year celebration, conducted by a young Chinese- American boy and his grandmother. Together they make their way through the crowded, colorful streets, into shops and restaurants, and past street vendors. They watch the traditional New Year's Day parade and lion dance, and wish each other ``Gung hay fat choy.'' Low's full-bleed oil paintings glow with red, gold, green, and turquoise; as is true of Low's work for Elaine Moore's Good Morning, City (1995), the pages are full of atmospheric lighting effects, as when morning sun first strikes the upper stories of the buildings, then streams through a window into the dark, dusty interior of an herbal shop, or when flames leap beneath a huge restaurant wok, or firecrackers spark and jump about the great tossing head of the New Year's lion. Readers will enjoy comparing Low's paintings with some similar scenes (roasted ducks hanging in a restaurant window, an open-air fishmonger, youngsters training in a kung fu studio, the squat black drum and colorful banners in the parade) photographed by Martha Cooper for Kate Waters's Lion Dancer (1990). (Picture book. 4-8) --
Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
About the Author
William Low is the illustrator of Stargone John by Ellen Kindt McKenzie, Lily by Abigail Thomas, and Good Morning City by Elaine Moore. A graduate of the Parsons School of Design and a four-time winner of the Society of Illustrators silver medal, Mr. Low now teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, not too far from Chinatown. He lives with his wife, illustrator Margaret Hewitt, on Long Island, New York.
