Multicultural Books

Chinatown by William Low

Low, W. (1997). Chinatown. New York: Henry Holt And Company.

ISBN # 0805042148

Chinatown is a story about a young boy who lives in Chinatown. The boy tells the story as he walks through the bustling Chinatown with his grandmother.  The pair go for their usual stroll, walking past the Tai Chi class, stopping to say hello to the street cobbler, looking at the duck in the Dai-Dai Restaurant, getting herbs in the musty smelling shop, and many more exciting stops! They then attend a Chinese New Year Parade. The parade is crowded with people all waiting for the lion and firecrackers.

Chinatown is a great book for three to five year old children because of the large vivid pictures. The book takes you on an adventure through Chinatown; the vivid pictures give a reference to any unfamiliar ideas. It introduces the daily life of somewhere from another culture in a very exciting manner.  

 The illustrations are done with bright vivid acrylic paints and fill the entire page. The illustrations provide interesting scenes with lots of little details to notice. Illustration is also very important in the book as many of the ideas or places could be unfamiliar to some children.  The bright colours and full pages evoke a lot of excitement and really draw your attention to the book.

Provocations and Background:

This book is excellent t use during a Chinese New Year theme. If the class was already learning about the Chinese New Year this would be perfect to continue their excitement, but it could also be used to introduce children to the Chinese New Year. To provoke some interest in the children teachers can hang a red lantern from the ceiling, when children arrive in the morning they will be curious about what it is.  As the children arrive teacher can also put on Chinese New Year music.

Presenting the story:

Clothesline

 For this you will need a thick string or rope about one metre in length, clothespins as well as pictures of Chinatown. You could use specific pictures from the book by photocopying some of the images or finding your own images of Chinatown and creating your own version of your walk through Chinatown.

Props

Teachers could tell this story by using props from places the grandmother and boy stops at, for example a bowl of herbs to represent the visit to the herbal shop or a plastic fish for the market.

Acting it Out

You could set up stations or use your imagination to arrive at the different places the grandmother and boy go by walking around the classroom to different tables.

Places to stop and wonder with the children would be:

When they first enter Chinatown, ask if anyone has ever been to a Chinatown before? What is like, what kinds of shops and colours are there?

On the last page, I would ask the class to say, “Gung hay fat choy” with me.

Extensions:

Dance

One extension you could do would be to do Chinese New Year dancing such as the dragon and lion dance. You could also march to drumming music the way the older boys do at the parade. For this I would also bring a small drum to class to provide extra drumming to accompany the music.

Making Lanterns  

A craft activity teachers could plan is for the class to make their own red lanterns. Red is a prominent colour during the Chinese New Year. Teachers can provide many different shades of red paper, glitter, sequins and other supplies to decorate the lanterns.

Tai Chi

If you are not reading this during Chinese New Year or just want a little movement to shake up the day, the class can learn some basic Tai Chi moves. The teacher would start off by explaining what Tai Chi is and then demonstrate some moves for the class to copy.