Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

Much the same as her Dim Sum for Everyone! in structure, this book describes the preparation and celebration of the Moon Festival. At the end is a two-page informational text on the history of the holiday. ( )

Much as she did in her Dim Sum for Everyone!, children's author Grace Lin uses a simple text and colorful, engaging gouache artwork to introduce young readers to an aspect of Chinese (and Chinese-American) culture. Here we have a family - Ma-ma, Ba-ba, Mei-mei, Jie-jie, and the narrator - embarking on a night-time picnic as part of their celebration of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. Setting out the food, arranging the moon-honoring table, this is a time when the whole family (and the whole community) gets involved!

With a text that is very simple indeed - no more than a sentence per page - I think Thanking the Moon makes an excellent introduction to this major Chinese holiday for younger children. I really enjoyed Lin's artwork, with its excellent use of color, and its fabric-like motifs, in the background, something I also observed in her Dim Sum for Everyone! (the only other one of the author/artist's books I have read, thus far). I do wish that, perhaps in her informative afterword, the author had included the information that Mei-mei means "little sister," and Jie-jie "big sister," as I think many of her readers will be unaware of that, but other than this, I recommend this one wholeheartedly, as an excellent picture-book celebration of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival! ( )

Simply told, informative, and celebratory. ( )

Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is a good book for introducing festivals and traditions practiced by other cultures. In this story, the reader learns about the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. Grace Lin walks the readers through how her family celebrates the Moon Festival. ( )

Thanking the Moon is a book about the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. The book describes an Asian family and how they observe the moon during a mid-autumn night. The family plays games and sets up a picnic, eating mooncakes. At the end of the book, the family closes their eyes and gives thanks to the moon and sends it their secret wishes. The book has colorful illustrations with very little text, placing the emphasis on the story telling through the illustrations.