Grace Lin's Blog, page 64

thanks for coming!

The Starry River of the Sky online launch is now over! I hope that you all enjoy the book!

Don't forget to enter your photo with the book for the portrait prize, order the glow-in-the-dark stickers for your book group and eat some mooncakes! And if that's not enough, there are even more activities you can do with the book HERE.

Thanks so much for coming!

Glow-in-the-dark sticker giveaway and event kit!

Your group--classroom, book club, reading group can order these glow-in-the-dark stickers FREE! Remember when I was offering advanced reading copies to book clubs? I was really sad that I couldn't send one to every group that contacted me, but now I DO have something for everyone! Your book club, your classroom-- anyone who is reading and sharing Starry River of the Sky--  can order these specially made glow-in-the-dark stickers FREE! Yes, if you're a teacher reading the book to you class, you can order a sticker for each student. If your mother-daughter bookclub is reading Starry River of the Sky, each girl can have a sticker! For free. Go ahead and  order your stickers HERE (while supplies last}.

These stickers are part of  this event kit that goes with the book.  Have your own Starry River of the Sky Book Party! With this event kit  readers can listen to Chinese legends and then, marked with the symbol of power, save the earth!

ABOUT THE EVENT
Many of the stories tell of why the sun and moon hang in the sky and what can happen when their balance is disturbed.  This interactive read-aloud and follow-up game features one of those ancient stories and rewards readers with a glow-in-the-dark sticker that can represent for them the sun, the moon, and how their places in the sky effect our traditional stories and the story of The Starry River of the Sky.
The Interactive Read-Aloud allows you to read aloud from the first ancient story told in the book while using the whole audience for sound effects.  The script will also prompt you to use members of the audience and some simple props to tell the story of a hero who shoots multiple suns from the sky.
The Game allows all the attendees to participate post-reading in a simple tossing of a rice-filled arrow onto a sun target.  They can be rewarded with glow-in-the-dark stickers that you can order free of charge. You can order the glow-in-the-dark stickers from www.CuriousCityDPW.com (while supplies last!)
Download the EVENT KIT!


It's a book birthday party! Yes, Starry River of the Sky is now available (it's gotten 5 starred reviews!) and all day long I'm posting fun activities, behind-the-scene tidbits and a great giveaway (don't miss your chance to get your portrait painted)! If you want to celebrate with me in person,  check my tour schedule to see if I'll be having a booksigning near you--I'd be happy to see you!

The NOXIOUS TOAD:A Craft Activity

Make a toad lantern!

THE NOXIOUS TOAD
Rendi is as confused as the reader when the toad he has found in the well is welcomed by old Mr. Shan and Madame Shan like an old friend.  The sweet and clever toad proves to be a friend to Rendi as well when he frightens off the kidnappers who believe the small toad to be the Noxious Toad that will fill the air with its poison and kill anyone near.  The kidnappers are tricked because the toad has been fed fireflies and glows from within (pages 171-184).  The idea for feeding the toad the fireflies must have come from Madame Chang's wonderful trick of gathering fireflies in silk to make glowing lanterns on a dark night.


The Toad Lantern Craft
(special thanks to Curious City for creating this)

To celebrate, Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival,  I designed a Bunny Lantern.  Use that craft if you'd like to make the softer representation of the moon.  If, however, you want to scare your neighbors with the sight of the Noxious Toad or charm them with the sweet toad of Mr. Shan  whose belly is filled with fireflies, you can follow these suggested instructions HERE.


It's a book birthday party! Yes, Starry River of the Sky is now available (it's gotten 5 starred reviews!) and all day long I'm posting fun activities, behind-the-scene tidbits and a great giveaway (don't miss your chance to get your portrait painted)! If you want to celebrate with me in person,  check my tour schedule to see if I'll be having a booksigning near you--I'd be happy to see you!

Blog Tour

As well as this online booklaunch today, I'm traveling the interwebs all week on a blog tour! Read yesterday's interview with the BookWoogie blog kids and today's interview with The Enchanted Inkpot! I'll be here the rest of the week:


October 3 – Jama's Alphabet SoupOctober 4 – Pragmatic MomOctober 5 – Charlotte's LibraryOctober 9 – Abby the Librarian

It's a book birthday party! Yes, Starry River of the Sky is now available (it's gotten 5 starred reviews!) and all day long I'm posting fun activities, behind-the-scene tidbits and a great giveaway (don't miss your chance to get your portrait painted)! If you want to celebrate with me in person,  check my tour schedule to see if I'll be having a booksigning near you--I'd be happy to see you!

Behind Starry River of the Sky

Here's a little mini-documentary of some of my author notes for more party entertainment. Find out what Rendi's name means, why I wrote the book and more! However--Warning!--there is a spoiler or two in there!



It's a book birthday party! Yes, Starry River of the Sky is now available (it's gotten 5 starred reviews!) and all day long I'm posting fun activities, behind-the-scene tidbits and a great giveaway (don't miss your chance to get your portrait painted)! If you want to celebrate with me in person,  check my tour schedule to see if I'll be having a booksigning near you--I'd be happy to see you!

Refreshments!

It's noon here at my virtual booklaunch, so it's time for some refreshments!  Would you like some mooncakes?

 The Starry River of the Sky has many parallels to the tales told during the Chinese Moon Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival (you can learn more about the Moon Festival in my picturebook Thanking the Moon). The Moon Festival falls every year on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, when the moon is at its most bright.


Mooncakes are an important part of the Moon Festival.  Exchanged as gifts, mooncakes are a round pastry with some sort of rich filling inside.  The preparation of this pastry is very complex, and many of the fancier versions feature an imprint of the Chinese characters for ‚"longevity‚" or "harmony." Pictures of the moon, the lady in the moon, or a rabbit (a symbol of the moon) are also often imprinted in the top.

Mooncakes are such labor-intensive pastries that many who celebrate the Moon Festival now rely on specialty bakers and mail order. But here is a simple version mooncake recipe courtesy of  the wonderful folks at Asia for Kids (look for their Asian languages and cultures resources at www.afk.com):

Mooncakes 

Ingredients:
1/2 cup salted butter
1/4 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 can red bean paste or 1 cup jam
 
1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter, sugar and 1 egg yolk. Stir until creamy and combine completely.

2. Add the flour and mix thoroughly. Form the dough into one large ball and wrap it in aluminum foil. Put this in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

3. Unwrap the chilled dough and, with clean hands, form small balls in the palms of your hands. These are the mooncakes.

4. Make a hole with your thumb gently in the center of each mooncake and fill with about half a teaspoon of your favorite jam or red bean paste.

5. Brush each cake with the other beaten egg yolk.

6. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Bake the mooncakes for about 20 minutes or just until the outside edges are slightly brown. Makes about 24 mooncakes.




Other Mooncake-related activities you can do:
Chinese Character Treasure HuntAn online search or a Chinese bakery visit near Moon Festival will show you beautiful examples of these traditional pastries.  You might have your reader do a treasure hunt through those images or pastry cases to see if he or she can find the Chinese characters for‚"longevity‚" or "harmony."


Finding SymbolismWhat is common in all mooncakes, either simple or complex, is the round shape and the inclusion of a surprise filling in the center.  Can you help your readers make a connection between the shape of the cake and the moon? What could the unexpected filling represent?
Historical ResearchOlder readers may want to research the folk tale about how mooncakes were used as a tool of espionage in the overthrow of Mongolian rulers in the 14th century.  
For your convenience, this activity is available in a downloadable format HERE.




It's a book birthday party! Yes, Starry River of the Sky is now available (it's gotten 5 starred reviews!) and all day long I'm posting fun activities, behind-the-scene tidbits and a great giveaway (don't miss your chance to get your portrait painted)! If you want to celebrate with me in person,  check my tour schedule to see if I'll be having a booksigning near you--I'd be happy to see you!

DAY OF FIVE POISONS: An Art Activity

DAY OF FIVE POISONS
The Starry River of the Sky opens on The Day of Five Poisons, one of the most dangerous days in ancient China.  The day was observed on the fifth day of the fifth month and marked the beginning of summer when villagers were most vulnerable to poisonous animals, insects, and disease.

Right after Rendi arrives in the Village of Clear Sky, we see Master Chao paint Peiyi's forehead with wang, a symbol of power, to protect her from this unlucky day.  Master Chao uses wine mixed with realgar or arsenic.  Realgar/arsenic is a poison and the villagers believed you needed poison to fight poison.

Poisonous Animals
The five poisonous animals were the snake, the scorpion, the centipede, the spider, and the toad.  If you lived amongst these poisonous animals in the summer, you too might want to wear protection like all Chinese children did on this day.  The adults took their protection in a more potent way by drinking the wine with a touch of poison in it.  You get a sense of how much these animals were feared when you see how easy it was to trick Rendi's kidnappers into believing that the Noxious Toad was after them.

The Tiger
It was not just Chinese children in ancient China that wore the character for power or wang on their foreheads.  Tigers were believed to be the most powerful creatures of the animal kingdom, and in paintings and drawings of tigers, the black marks on their foreheads often formed the character, wang.


Five Poison Charms
Another common protection from the Five Poisons were charms that were hung about your neck or nailed to the your house. If you search online for images of "Five Poison Charms," you can see how many of the circular charms show a tiger chasing a snake, a scorpion, a centipede, a spider, a toad, or all five.  Yes, tigers were also very dangerous to villagers in Ancient China, but maybe like the arsenic that fought poison with poison, the tiger pit dangerous animal against dangerous animal.

Your Own Five Poison Charm
Create your own Five Poison Charm by drawing a tiger chasing a snake, a scorpion, a centipede, a spider, or a toad (or all five) in the circle template found HERE.  (Don't worry about your animals looking perfect.  Remember that charms were about symbolism.  Your tiger need only resemble a tiger to work!)  Cut out your charm when you are finished, cut a hole in the middle of it, thread the hole with string or yarn, and hang it on a doorknob or around your neck for protection.



It's a book birthday party! Yes, Starry River of the Sky is now available (it's gotten 5 starred reviews!) and all day long I'm posting fun activities, behind-the-scene tidbits and a great giveaway (don't miss your chance to get your portrait painted)! If you want to celebrate with me in person,  check my tour schedule to see if I'll be having a booksigning near you--I'd be happy to see you!

Reading an excerpt

For your online book party entertainment, here I am reading an excerpt of Starry River of the Sky! (It's not the first chapter like I say in the beginning, just the first page and a half).


It's a book birthday party! Yes, Starry River of the Sky is now available (it's gotten 5 starred reviews!) and all day long I'm posting fun activities, behind-the-scene tidbits and a great giveaway (don't miss your chance to get your portrait painted)! If you want to celebrate with me in person,  check my tour schedule to see if I'll be having a booksigning near you--I'd be happy to see you!

Enter the drawing and win your portrait!

If you do this:
take a photo of yourself with my book

you could win this:
special edition pocket pacy!

And maybe even this:
it would be a portrait of you, not the baby!

Yes, it's the giveaway I've been talking about! For those readers who live to far away to come to my bookstore parties, here's your chance get the goodies!

All you have to do is:

1) TAKE a photo of yourself with my book. It can be at the bookstore, at a library, anywhere! Just a photo of the book with YOU in it.

2) POST or SHARE that photo to my facebook page (on the wall).(if you are not a facebook fan, you can e-mail me your photo at gracelin.manager@gmail.com & I can post for you!

3)Then, you are automatically entered into a drawing to win...





a special edition Pocket Pacy! Each one is handpainted by yours truly, with pearly purple and  little starry diamonds--in the honor of Starry River of the Sky. 
On Nov 3rd and on Dec.1st, I will draw the names out of a hat. There are nine Pocket Pacys so you post your phot before Nov. 3rd you have nine chances to win (you do not have to submit again if you don't win in the Nov. 3rd drawing). 

But there's more! On Dec 1st, I will do a drawing from all the participants for the Grand Prize...

YOUR PORTRAIT!I'll paint you from a photograph and you can keep the painting forever an ever!
That's right, so in for the next two months you have a chance to win a special edition pocket pacy and then a chance to for a portrait painting. All you have to do is post a photo of yourself with Starry RIver of the Sky!
So post (or send) those photos in now!  Can't wait to see you!







It's a book birthday party! Yes, Starry River of the Sky is now available (it's gotten 5 starred reviews!) and all day long I'm posting fun activities, behind-the-scene tidbits and a great giveaway (don't miss your chance to get your portrait painted)! If you want to celebrate with me in person,  check my tour schedule to see if I'll be having a booksigning near you--I'd be happy to see you![image error]

flipping through my book

And here it is! I can't believe Starry River of the Sky finished!

You'll notice that we used the same author photo as Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. At the time a new photo was needed, I was pregnant with Rain Dragon  and I was  too vain to have a bloated-looking author photo!  However, I look even less like my author photo then I did before (and I didn't look much like it initially!) Anyway, like the bio says, the photo is an "inspired fantasy!"





It's a book birthday party! Yes, Starry River of the Sky is now available (it's gotten 5 starred reviews!) and all day long I'm posting fun activities, behind-the-scene tidbits and a great giveaway (don't miss your chance to get your portrait painted)! If you want to celebrate with me in person,  check my tour schedule to see if I'll be having a booksigning near you--I'd be happy to see you!