LS 5903 MULTICULTURAL LITERATURE

A. Wong, Janet S. THIS NEXT NEW YEAR. New York: Frances Foster Books for Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000. Illustrated by Yangsook Choi.

B. PLOT SUMMARY

Our narrator is a young boy with a Chinese Father and a Korean Mother. He gives a quick description of the “regular” New Year and then tells us how he and his friends and neighbors celebrate Chinese New Year in many different ways depending on their various ethnic identities. He speaks of cleaning the house by saying, “We are scrubbing our house rough and raw so it can soak up good luck like an empty sponge.” The young boy and his family seem just barely to cross the line into middle class status and our narrator actively wishes for more money, new clothes, and good luck to finally come to rest at his home. Wong sums up that feeling of being joyous even though you may come from humble origins in the last lines of her end notes. “We never got rich. But we always had plenty to share.”

C. CRITICAL ANALYSIS (INCLUDING CULTURAL MARKERS)

I liked the book very much for its positive message. It is a message not stated but implied, that every ethnic group is special in its own unique way, not just the unique way they are portrayed celebrating Chinese New Year. Our young boy narraator tells the way his family celebrates “the regular new year, January 1, when we watch the Rose Parade and football games and make crazy New Year’s resolutions.” There is an attempt, and for me a very successful one of inclusion. A purist or orthodox minded individual may disagree but showing how immigrants from China, Korea, France, Germany, a Native American from the Hopi tribe, a Mexican, and a lady from Singapore all celebrate Chinese New Year seems to acknowledge that Chinese New Year is indeed a special holiday and that it is perfectly fine for different families from parts of the world to acknowledge it in their own way.

The other major point about ethnicities brought up in the book is how most all of us in America have a mixed heritage. Our young protagonist tells of celebrating Chinese New Year “even though I am half Korean.” While most of their meal and the other ways they celebrate the holiday are traditionally Chinese, our main character makes a point of telling us that his Mom, whose ancestry is Korean rather than Chinese makes duk gook, the Korean new years soup to add to their otherwise Chinese holiday supper. The little boy speaks of his best friend, “who is French and German.” He states that Glenn’s family calls the holiday Chinese New Year too, but their way of celebrating and acknowledging the season is to eat take out food from a Thai restaurant. The little boy’s other best friend is called Evelyn and she “is part Hopi and part Mexican.” Evelyn claims this as her favorite holiday. Our narrator thinks Evelyn likes Chinese New Year best because the kids have an older neighbor whose roots are in Singapore and she distributes “red envelopes with money stuffed” inside to the neighborhood children.

Counting our little boy narrator there are four other characters and families. Three of the four have a well known mixed heritage. The narrator; Chinese and Korean. The “white” family with French and German roots, the little girl that is Hopi and Mexican. The woman from Singapore is the only person in the story without a mixed heritage. This was the idea of the American Dream when I was a little girl—the rich colored and textured melting pot where assimilation and blended traditions was a goal. Sometimes ethnic groups want to revel in each other’s differences. Wong is pleased to see how much all groups are alike, how it may be just as important to stake your claim as an American than to simply exist as a foreigner in your own enclave of people with the same heritage that is not open to change or an immigrant who wants to recreate his space from his home country to make a “Little Italy” or a “Chinatown.”

The theme of trying to find your place as an Asian Pacific American is very much a part of this story. The book also does a fine job in explaining the traditional customs of Chinese New Year. The neighborhood in the story might well be called “transitional” by a realtor these days to mean that people from many different backgrounds live there in what appears to be at least in part due to financial reasons. I happen to live in a neighborhood like this with extravagant homes very close by but my great subdivision is considered tainted because we cross over one block over the “line” which is Buford Highway.

The art work by Choi is done appropriately. The European family has lighter skin tone than the people of color that populate most of the book. The artwork of the Chinese Dragon parade is vivid, realistic, and appealing. For the holiday meal our little fellow is pictured seated in a cross legged fashion on a pillow in his sockfeet at a low table. Their table and wall decorations are obviously from the Asian tradition. I do not know enough to differentiate between Chinese and Korean artwork and tablecloths. The most beautiful illustrations in the book are the full page spreads in bright yellow and green with a bit of orange that picture our young friend in the bathtub with bubbles of all sizes filling up the pages as the rubber ducky looks on and the pup tries to pop a bubble that has floated into the air. On the following page as doggy sits on the toilet seat trying to figure out what in the world his little master is doing by flossing his teeth. The last page of the book features our little man and his dog flying in the air. The boy looks very reminiscent of the young girl protagonist in Faith Ringold’s TAR BEACH in this picture and he too dreams of a better life “somewhere out there.”

THIS NEXT NEW YEAR is a bright warm book portraying the author’s ideas about how immigrants, especially Asian Pacific Americans, can become a piece of the American Pie without loosing their cultural ingredients.

D. REVIEW EXCERPTS:

Amazon.com editorializes: "Yangsook Choi's artfully composed, action-packed paintings add uplifting color to the happy spirit of the holiday, and an author's note provides more details about the Chinese New Year and Wong's childhood memories of the celebration. This delightful picture book makes a fine addition to the small collection of Chinese New Year books, distinguishing itself with the narrator's endearingly persistent quest for luck: "They say you are coming into money / when your palms itch, / and my palms have been itching for days. / My brother thinks it's warts, / but I know luck is coming." (Ages 4 to 8) --Emilie Coulter

School Library Journal opines, " The narrator's mother cooks a special Korean soup, and his family observes the traditions of house cleaning, lighting firecrackers, and being extra good to ensure a lucky new year. Wong carefully and clearly presents the reasons behind the rituals in a manner understandable to young children. She explains in an appended note about her own confusion as a child about the timing and meaning of the holiday. Choi's vibrant, somewhat primitive paintings realistically capture the details of and preparations for this hopeful time of year. Youngsters will enjoy the bright colors and the sense of motion and activity conveyed as the boy helps his mother clean, flosses his teeth, and cringes from the noise of the firecrackers. A good choice for anyone getting ready to celebrate Chinese New Year.
Anne Connor, Los Angeles Public Library





Reviews accessed from:

http://www.amazon.com/This-Next-Year-Janet-Wong/dp/0374355037/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-2255834-9114420?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185497936&sr=1-1


E. CONNECTIONS

SAM AND THE LUCKY MONEY is another wonderful picturebook about Chinese New Year written with an insider's perspective by Karen Chinn.
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