From Publishers Weekly
Harmony is the effect Huy achieves in her playful collage cutouts of blooming park scenes. As in At the Beach and In the Snow, Huy fluidly weaves a lesson in drawing Chinese characters into a mother-son outing. Young Xiao Ming, sporting a baseball cap, pulls his pigtailed mother excitedly through an expansive urban refuge. Nature has erupted into the colors of spring and there's much to see: families strolling, singing groups and chirping birds, an army of ants loaded with cargo, Rollerbladers, bikers and painters. Huy gracefully depicts the American melting pot in these double-spread pages framed with borders of soft colors that integrate silhouettes of elements from the text (ducks, frogs, raindrops). The Chinese character that Xiao Ming's mother is teaching him to draw introduces each spread: for example, the character for insects ("It looks like three bugs flying," remarks Xiao Ming) accompanies three bees in flight; three flowing vertical lines connote a stream. Huy uses an organic approach, exploring each word as mother and son come upon it in their travels; a strategy especially well suited to a written language in which art and life meet so naturally in the composition of its characters (a glossary flanks the tale). The park scenes are wonderfully diverse, and in the few spreads where mother and son are not visible, their running dialogue keeps them ever present. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 2-4AThis concept book follows the format of the artist's At the Beach (1994) and In the Snow (1995, both Holt). An excursion to an urban park in springtime provides Xiao Ming's mother another opportunity to teach him 10 Chinese characters. Each character is written at the beginning of the paragraph in which Mother explains the elements of the ideograph and connects it to the natural objects nearby. The pages are handsomely composed tableaux of people enjoying activities in the park. The cast is multicultural and multigenerational. The illustrations, built of plain or patterned cut-paper collages, shift in point of view. Each scene is set within borders that often feature decorative motifs relating to the characters under discussion. The characters and a pronunciation guide in standard Chinese are listed on the first and last pages. Peggy Goldstein's Long Is a Dragon (Pacific View, 1992), intended for older children and not so visually appealing, shows how to write characters. It is a better choice for an organized, logical explanation of Chinese ideographs. Lee's title should awaken interest in Chinese writing, but could stand alone as an example of the art of collage, or as a celebration of spring.AMargaret A. Chang, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
