Exploring Chinatown: A Children's Guide to Chinese Culture

by Carol Stepanchuk

About the Author

Carol Stepanchuk is a writer, multicultural educator, and author of two previous books: Red Eggs and Dragon Boats: Celebrating Chinese Festivals and Mooncakes and Hungry Ghosts: Festivals of China. She lives with her family in Michigan.

Illustrator Leland Wong was born and raised in San Francisco's Chinatown. He works as an artist, screen printer, and photographer in the Asian-American community of San Francisco.

Genres: China, Nonfiction

64 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2002

Reviews

[Megan Koval · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book contained a lot of good information, but I also think that some of the pages did not utilize space to the best of their ability. While each page did contain a decent amount of text, there was a lot of blank white space on the pages and I feel as if that space could have been used much more effectively. However, I do think that the information in the book was great. I really liked that the book talked about everything from food, to festivals, to Chinese language and writing. I think this book did a great job at covering a variety of different information.

This book would be a good read aloud book for comparing China to China Town. I think it would be interesting to read this book and then a book about China and see what similarites and differences the students could find between the two. This would be a good way for students to see how culture can be influenced by many things, including one's heritage and origins.

I think this book would be a good independent read for someone that was going to visit somewhere such as New York that has a Chinatown so that if they do go and visit Chinatown they will know something about it prior to visiting. I think that a student who is traveleing to a city with a Chinatown would enjoy going to Chinatown, especially if he or she knew a little bit about it before going to visit.

This book had a great index. It was incredibly detailed and was very helpful. I think this book's index would be good for teaching children about what an index is and how to properly use one.

I think this book offers a great perspective on something many children may not be familiar with. I personally think it is incredibly neat how similar Chinatown is to China and I think that children will also find that to be incredibly fascinating as well.

[Greg]

I found this book to be a terrible example of a children's guide to Chinese culture. First of all, the cover of the book really draws in the young reader. Upon opening up the book though, you realize that this is a book relying heavily on literature and not its images. When children look at this book they would be easily intimidated and focus, not on the words, but on the sparse images that exists. I found one image in this book to be very misleading. There is a section in this book on "Acupuncture". This is a hard word for a child to read and understand. If the child looks on the page for context clues he or she would find children putting their index fingers on the outside corners of their eyes and pulling them apart creating an almond eye appearance. (In reality, the book was trying to show children how to do an eye exercise to relax their eyes based on acupoints). This is how children make fun of other children with Asian decent. I found this image to lack cultural sensitivity and not really aid in the comprehension of the book.

[Sharese Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book show more familiar Chinese elements that people can find in Chinatown. The text is not necessarily a book that has characters but instead it is a book of China and shows China being so full of culture and history. This book includes various festivals, performing arts, names for family members, lion dancing, and even the Chinese calendar.
As a literacy teacher, this book could be used to show how a particular culture lives. I would use it as a lesson to teach and show students the ways of Chinatown, giving my students experience and understanding for Chinese people in Chinatown. I think students will love all the pictures and songs and parties(festivals) that go on in Chinatown. The illustrator and author did a wonderful job of making sure the text connected with the illustrations. The illustrations caught my eye first but the words helped me understand more about what is going on in the picture and as well as how to explore Chinatown.

[Heidi-Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book to show more familiar Chinese elements that one could find in Chinatowns. While China is so full of culture and history, certain aspects are much more well-known. This would include various festivals, performing arts, names for family members, lion dancing, and the chinese calendar. This book covers many things that one might not only encounter in Chinatown, but in China itself. Very informative for children. Will probably book talk this one.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Explores the different culturally specific aspects of china that you can find in different "chinatowns" in America. Uses bright and fun illustrations to describe different elements of the Chinese culture.

This would be useful in the classroom to showcase some aspects of Chinese culture. Some children may have visited a "chinatown" in American and be especially interested.

[Vicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book that explains many aspects of the Chinese culture - perfect for kids and adults too! Easy to understand and fun to read. The illustrations are absolutely awesome and beautifully done by the amazing artist Leland Wong. I highly recommend this book!!

[Leland Wong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cool illustrations

[Franklyn Kornn]

Great cultural book about Chinese culture. Great for a cultural book share or a cultural text set on Chinese culture and customs.