This is the first book in a series for young children that will introduce them to other cultures through pictures and language.
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about I See the Sun books.
. . . King explains that the series had a rather organic beginning: she first wrote an earlier version of the book that is set in Nepal, where she was a Peace Corps volunteer in the mid-1960s and now visits regularly. “I have a good friend in Nepal who started an after-school learning center for lower-caste children, and she told me that it is important for them to learn English so that they can get into better schools,” she says. “So I decided to write a very simple story about daily life in Nepal from a child’s point of view, and present it in both Nepali and English to help those children learn the language.” Working with photographs, King’s longtime friend Inglese created collage art to illustrate that story, the original edition of which had limited distribution in Nepal only. Author and illustrator, who have both traveled extensively, saw the potential for creating a series of books set in other parts of the world. “We decided to use as a guiding theme the idea that people all over the world live their lives by the sun—we get up with the sun and go to be with the sun,” King observes. “And in all countries, no matter how different the cultures and traditions, a child’s daily routine is basically the same. There are chores, school, and, most importantly, the closeness of family.” . . .
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. . . One thing I love about this book is the glossary. I certainly found it useful! It defined some of the terms with which the average American may not be familiar, such as Tai Chi and congee! |
I See the Sun in China
By Dedie King with illustrations by Judith Inglese
ISBN: 978-0-9818720-5-6
40 pages
Price: $12.95
For children ages 4 and up
WINNER: Learning® Magazine 2011 Teachers’ ChoiceSM Award for the Family
Each book in the I See the Sun series portrays a feeling of the essential cultural elements of a country in a clear and simple way. China has undergone many changes throughout its long history. The last fifty years has seen it transform from a lower income traditional society to a major economic force in the world, with modern cities and increased individual wealth. We try to capture this central idea of movement in today’s China through words and pictures, telling the story of a day in the life of one child. The little girl and her family are Han and the story is about Shanghai because this city epitomizes the movement of young people from the country to the city, the progress of old to new, and the connections to other parts of the world.
The kids really enjoyed this book. I especially liked that it exposed them to a different culture and the glossary in the back was awesome! It was neat to go through the day of a Chinese child with the kiddos and we had a lot of fun comparing the things the little girl did with the things we do . . . talking about the differences and the similarities of our lives. It was also pretty cool to see pictures of what a child in China sees everyday. As adults, we sometimes get swept up in our own lives and forget that everybody, everywhere doesn't do everything the way we do, but the bottom line is we all have a lot in common. I am really happy we had the opportunity to open our little one's eyes to a different culture and I can't wait to read the next book in this awesome series! ABCD Diaries gives I See the Sun in China an A+! |
The cover of this book symbolizes the three themes of traditional old, movement and change, and the modern society. The picturesque sailing junk represents the old history and lifestyles still present in China today. The ferry shows the movement from the old to the modern, and the buildings of Shanghai show the vast modernization that continues to thrust China into the future. Elements in the story depict the converging of these three aspects of China today.
China is a very large and very diverse country, both in landscape and in peoples. The majority group is Han Chinese. About 8% of the 1.5 billion people belong to a minority group. Tibetan, Uyghur, Yi, Yao, Mongol, and Naxi are but a few of the 55 ethnic groups lving in the People’s Republic of China.
About the author: Dedie King was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal in the mid sixties. Presently Dedie practices Taoist acupuncture in Massachusetts.
About the illustrator: Judith Inglese, the illustrator, has been designing and fabricating ceramic tile murals for public environments for more than thirty years. Her commissions include libraries, schools, hospitals and municipal and institutional buildings like the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Her murals often focus on the play and imagination of children as well as cross-cultural exchange and community. Illustrating the "I See the Sun" series has given her another medium for examining these themes and celebrating children around the world. It is her first collaboration and publication.
. . . Visually, we found the book interesting. First, the illustrations are a mixture of paper cutouts, pictures and drawings. Second, the text on each page is in both English and Mandarin Chinese. Now, none of us can read a lick of Mandarin, but just having those characters there helped set the atmosphere of reading about China. . . .A few lessons were taken out of reading this book. People may live all the way across the globe, speak a different language, and have a different culture, but we are similar in a lot of ways; we all wake up to the same sun, we all go to shopping malls sometimes, we all care about our families. . . |
With a loving heart for China, the writer tells a story about... a girl whose natural and simple curiosity about her own future reflects the expectation for change in China overall. —Zhang Jia Zhu, |