Article on Chinese Culture Seventh Grade Reading Level

Please welcome author Dori Jones Yang, whose latest book is The Forbidden Temptation of Baseball . She presents 10 middle class chapter books to learn about Chinese culture. It'south a great list!

We are also giving abroad 3 copies of The Forbidden Temptation of Baseball. Please fill out the Rafflecopter at the bottom to enter.

How about you lot? What books with themes of China have you lot or your children enjoyed?

——–

My newest book, The Forbidden Temptation of Baseball game (age x and up), tells how another Chinese child adapted to life in America. This one takes place in the 1870s, when China'south government sent 120 boys to New England to study English and technology for xv years. While researching the Chinese Educational Mission, I was fascinated to larn that many of the boys loved playing baseball game—despite the requirement that they wear their hair in a complect. That set my imagination on fire. My book tells of 2 fictional brothers; one adapts rather quickly and the other has a much harder time.

When my daughter was growing up, I wanted to brand certain she continued to her Chinese heritage. Although I am not Chinese, her dad is, and I wanted her to relate to both sides of the family. I often read her folktales fix in China. When she was in 3rd grade, her teacher asked me to recommend a book for young readers near a child in Mainland china today. Confident, I scoured my personal book collection. I was surprised that I could not observe a single one!

That sent me on a chase for books about Chinese children. I plant several, including accolade winners, and I read them all. A few were written decades ago. In the years since and then, I take discovered many delightful new books, most about children balancing Asian and American values. I've collected quite a few and given others away to my many great-nieces and nephews. Plus, I've started writing some myself.

My involvement in Cathay began after college when I spent 2 years in Singapore studying Mandarin and teaching English language. Later, I worked in Hong Kong for eight years equally a foreign contributor covering China. That'south when I met my married man, and our daughter was built-in in Hong Kong. Today, similar many in hyphenated-American families, I desire to build bridges between two countries I love and respect.

My showtime children'due south book, The Cloak-and-dagger Voice of Gina Zhang (age ten and up), began with an American Girls contest. I was volunteering as a classroom mentor to two Chinese children, so I decided to write about a Chinese immigrant girl in Seattle. Since most immigrant kids learn to speak English quickly, I gave my character another problem: she could not speak a word in school. Information technology's a condition called selective mutism. The book won the contest and was published in 2001.

Daughter of Xanadu , a young-adult novel for age 12 and up, tells of a daring granddaughter of Khubilai Khan in xiii^th century China. Inspired by tales almost battle victories, Emmajin sets about proving she can be the first adult female to join the Khan'southward army. Subsequently she meets a immature merchant from Italy, Marco Polo, she begins to run across the world—and warfare—through different eyes. I've spoken to many sixth grade classes nearly this Asian woman's view of history.

In today'southward America, where anti-immigrant tensions are rising, I call back it's actress important that kids read books about children from other countries and cultures.

Every bit an avid reader of centre-course books about Chinese and Chinese-American kids, I've developed my own ready of favorites. Here are my top 10 recommendations.

Tiptop 10 Middle Grade Books to Larn nearly Chinese Culture

10. Dragonwings and Dragon'south Gate by Laurence Yep

Any list in this category must start with Laurence Yep, a San Franciscan with a Ph.D. who won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for his long career writing children's literature. He won Newbery honors for these ii books, set in celebrated California, and has also written dozens of others. Dragonwings is now a classic, the story of a Chinese immigrant male child whose father works in a laundry but dreams of building flying machines. Dragon's Gate tells of a male child who comes to the United States to piece of work on building the transcontinental railroad. [chapter book, ages 12 and up]

9. Ho-Ming, Girl of New Prc  by Elizabeth Foreman Lewis

My search for kids' books virtually Red china sent me scrambling back to my own childhood bookshelf, where I found an original 1934 version of this book, about a 12-yr-old girl growing upwardly in what was so contemporary China. The author, who taught school in China a hundred years ago, won a Newbery Medal in 1933 for some other book, Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze. Evidently, China has changed since then, just her books remain worth reading because they tell how traditional values clashed with modern Western influences. Ho-Ming is out of print, merely Young Fu was recently republished. (chapter book, ages 10 and up)

8. Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear  by Lensey Namioka, illustrated by Kees de Kiefte

This is the get-go of a serial of four delightful books near four Yang children, immigrants growing upwardly in a musical family in America. Ix-year-old Yingtao, the youngest boy, prefers baseball to the violin only meets an American male child whose family pressures him in the contrary direction. Namioka, Chinese by nascence and married to a Japanese human being, has written many excellent books gear up in America, China, and Nippon. [chapter volume, ages eight and up]

vii. Half and Half  by Lensey Namioka

This charming story is not less well-known but spoke to me. It tells of a girl who is half-Chinese and half-Scottish—one of the few books virtually biracial children like my daughter. Fiona Cheng looks more like her Chinese father, but she wants to learn about her female parent'southward Scottish heritage. At the annual Folk Fest, she has to decide between two performances, one representing each side of her family. [chapter book, ages eight and upwardly]

half dozen. In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson  by Bette Bao Lord, illustrated by Marc Simont

First published in 1984, this perennial favorite is witty, lively, and charming. I recently reread it and found it equally fresh as ever. Gear up in Brooklyn in 1946, it tells of Shirley Temple Wong, a Chinese immigrant daughter who enters fifth grade speaking most no English.

After being ignored by her classmates from many races, she learns to play stickball and loves listening to broadcasts of baseball games. The delightful illustrations bring the story to life. [chapter book, ages viii and up]

v. Ruby Butterfly by A.50. Sonnichsen, illustrated by Amy June Bates

Similar many readers, I wasn't sure I would similar reading a book in verse, but this ane charmed me with its lyrical story-telling and vivid emotions. It's an unusual tale since Kara is raised in Tianjin by an American adult female who hides her considering she doesn't take the correct to adopt her. This book draws yous in with Kara'due south vocalism of yearning, heartbreak, and longing for a dwelling house where she belongs. [chapter book, ages eight and up]

4. The Dandy Wall of Lucy Wu by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

Growing up in America, Lucy loves pizza better than dim sum and would much rather play basketball than go to Chinese language school on Saturday mornings. As her brilliant sis heads off to college, Lucy is ready to claim a room of her ain until her dad invites an elderly corking aunt to alive with them. All her plans are foiled! But the old lady manages to break through Lucy'due south walls of stubborn resistance to everything Chinese. [chapter book, ages eight and up]

iii. The Mode Home Looks At present by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

Shang's new volume, published in 2017, as well captured my centre. In this story, 12-year-former Peter Lee misses his big brother, who died before the story began. His mother seldom gets upward from the burrow, and Peter wants to win back her love and attention by playing baseball. When his strict father becomes the double-decker of his team, Peter expects disaster. But his father turns out to be loving and wise. And the team holds a surprise no one anticipated. [chapter book, ages eight and up]

ii. But Similar Me by Nancy Cavanaugh

This unusual story tells nearly Chinese girls adopted past American parents, and the author knows about this from personal experience. Julia is dreading summer camp considering her parents await her to be friends with ii other girls adopted from the same Chinese orphanage. Those other girls are not "just like" her. During a week of misadventures, she discovers that those girls—and others in their cabin—have identity struggles, also. [chapter book, ages viii and up]

i. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon  by Grace Lin

No list about Chinese culture is complete without the luminous writing—and illustration—of the incomparable Grace Lin. This Newbery Honor-winning book transports readers into a mystical land as Minli embarks on an epic quest to find the One-time Man of the Moon, hoping he will bring good fortune to her family. A determined and spunky girl, Minli encounters a flightless dragon and a talking fish and manages to observe a permanent spot in the reader's heart, likewise. [affiliate book, ages 8 and up]

3 Book GIVEAWAY of The Forbidden Temptation of Baseball

We are giving away three copies of The Forbidden Temptation of Baseball to three winners. We can only mail to U.S. addresses due to the loftier cost of aircraft. Please fill out the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Dori Jones Yang is a Seattle-area author with extensive experience making personal connections across boundaries of culture and time. Raised in Ohio, she lived and worked in Singapore and Hong Kong and covered the opening of Cathay as a journalist for Business organization Calendar week. Married to a Chinese man, she has traveled widely throughout Asia. Her previous books include a immature-adult historical novel prepare in Red china at the time of Marco Polo and a centre-class novel almost a daughter from Red china who begins fifth grade in Seattle only to find she has lost her voice. Subsequently studying Chinese for many years, Dori knows what information technology feels like to struggle to express your thoughts in an unfamiliar language. Her newest children's book, The Forbidden Temptation of Baseball game releases on August 15, 2017. Learn more at her website.

To examine whatsoever book more closely at Amazon, please click on image of book.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

My books:

Best #OWNVOICES CHILDREN'S BOOKS: My Favorite Diversity Books for Kids Ages one-12 is a book that I created to highlight books written by authors who share the same marginalized identity equally the characters in their books.

Please follow and like united states:

15

bowmanenteate.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.pragmaticmom.com/2017/11/top-10-books-chinese-culture/

Share this post