Synopses & Reviews
Katie loves to show her grandma how to dress a Barbie...and GninGnin loves to show Katie how to make rice dumplings. More than anything, Katie longs to go with GninGnin to work, to crack a mountain of crabs alongside her at the crab cannery.
One day Katie gets her wish, but nothing is the way she'd imagined it. GninGnin swings a heavy mallet from sunup to sundown in a noisy, smelly room, earning barely enough for bus fare and a fish for dinner. That evening, when Katie eats the delicious meal that GninGnin has cooked -- "made with love as strong as ginger and dreams as thick as black-bean paste" -- she has a new understanding of her beloved grandma's hard life, and the sacrifices she's made to give her granddaughter a brighter future.
All the poignancy of Lenore Look's beautifully realized story -- based on her own childhood memories of her Chinese immigrant grandmother -- is captured in Caldecott Honor Medalist Stephen T. Johnson's sensitive, expressive pastels.
Synopsis
A Chinese-American girl comes to realize how hard her grandmother works to fulfill her dreams when they spend a day together at the cannery cracking crabs. Full color.
About the Author
Stephen T. Johnson is the creator of such well-known children’s books as the Publishers Weekly bestseller My Little Red Toolbox, the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award winner My Little Yellow Taxi, the Caldecott Honor and New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year Alphabet City, and the New York Times Best Illustrated and ALA Notable Book A Is for Art. His drawings and paintings are in numerous private and permanent collections, including the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and a mosaic mural at the DeKalb Avenue subway station in Brooklyn, New York. Johnson and his family live in Lawrence, Kansas. Visit him at StephenJohnsonStudio.com.Lenore Look is the author of Ruby Lu, Brave and True, an ALA Notable Book; Love As Strong As Ginger, illustrated by Caldecott Honor artist Stephen T. Johnson; and Henry's First-Moon Birthday, illustrated by Yumi Heo. She lives in Randolph, New Jersey.
Kids Q&A
Read the Kids' Q&A with Lenore Look