Celebrate the Year of the Rabbit

Kids Fiction

It’s Your Year, Baby Rabbit

By Ariel Hsu

Happy Lunar New Year, Baby Rabbit! Baby Rabbit is kind, smart, funny, and generous. They love to share and make their loved ones happy. Welcome the new year by celebrating all the wonderful, positive traits that make the rabbit zodiac special. This sweet board book will get babies and toddlers excited about their very own zodiac sign!

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My First Chinese New Year

By Karen Katz

Chinese New Year is a time of new beginnings. Follow one little girl as she learns how to welcome the coming year and experience all the festivities surrounding it. This warm and lively introduction to a special holiday will make even the youngest child want to start a Chinese New Year tradition!

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Dragon Parade: A Chinese New Year Story

By Steven A. Chin

Norman Ah Sing is a successful, newly-arrived Chinese grocer in the San Francisco of the 1850s. He is thrilled to be in the Land of the Golden Mountain. His delight prompts him to invite all to celebrate the Lunar New Year and to organize the first big celebration in 1851 Chinatown.

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The Great Race: The Story of the Chinese Zodiac

By Dawn Casey

Race with the animals of the Zodiac as they compete to have the years of the Chinese calendar named after them. The excitement-filled story is followed by notes on the Chinese calendar, important Chinese holidays, and a chart outlining the animal signs based on birth years.

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New Clothes for New Year’s Day

By Hyun-Joo Bae

A young Korean girl describes the new clothes that she will be wearing to celebrate the new year.

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Red is a Dragon

By Roseanne Thong

A Chinese American girl provides rhyming descriptions of the great variety of colors she sees around her, from the red of a dragon, firecrackers, and lychees to the brown of her teddy bear.

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A Sweet New Year for Ren

By Michelle Sterling

Ren has always been too little to help make her favorite pineapple cakes for the Lunar New Year, but when her one-of-a-kind brother Charlie arrives for the festivities, with his help, she finally gets her chance. Includes recipe for pineapple cakes.

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Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas

By Natasha Yim

A favorite fairy tale set in a bustling contemporary Chinatown. It’s Chinese New Year, and Goldy Luck’s mother wants her to take a plate of turnip cakes to the neighbors. The Chans aren’t home, but that doesn’t stop Goldy from trying out their rice porridge, their chairs, and their beds-with disastrous results. In this funny and festive retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears , Natasha Yim and Grace Zong introduce a plucky heroine who takes responsibility for her actions and makes a new friend (and a whole plate of turnip cakes!), just in time for Chinese New Year. Includes back matter about Chinese New Year and a recipe for turnip cakes.

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The Great Race: Story of the Chinese Zodiac

By Christopher Corr

Learn how every animal earned its place in the Chinese zodiac by taking part in the Great Race! Discover who will come first to win the ultimate prize, and find out why Cat will never forgive his friend Rat in this ancient folk tale that has been passed from generation to generation.

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Lanterns and Firecrackers: A Chinese New Year Story

By Jonny Zucker

A Chinese family prepares for their New Year festivities they decorate the house with flowers, then set off firecrackers to scare away bad spirits and welcome the coming year. Family and friends sit down together for a festive dinner, then go outside to watch the parade of dragon dancers. The festival ends on its final night with a display of colored lanterns.

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Tet: The New Year

By Kim-Lan Tran

The children of Miss Kim’s class decide to put together their own celebration of Vietnamese New Year. Their classmate, Huy Ly, and his father are recent immigrants from Vietnam who feel homesick and isolated away from their homeland. Will they be able to capture the magic of the holiday so far away from home?

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Alex’s Good Fortune

By Benson Shum

Celebrate Chinese New Year with this sweet story of friendship and family! In this story designed to engage early readers, charming characters combine with simple text, lively illustrations, and laugh-out-loud humor to help boost kids’ confidence and create lifelong readers! Chinese New Year is the most important holiday for Alex and her family, so it’s even more special when she gets to share her favorite traditions with her best friend, Ethan. Together, they join the Chinese New Year parade and get to help make the dragon dance. Then they prepare for the festivities by tidying up, decorating, and making dumplings. After that, it’s time to open red envelopes, eat a great big feast, and enjoy the lantern fesival! Complete with fun facts about the holiday in the back of the book, young readers will want to revisit this story again and again. Exciting, easy-to-read books are the stepping stone a young reader needs to bridge the gap between being a beginner and being fluent.

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Kids Nonfiction

Moonbeams, Dumplings, and Dragon Boats

By Nina Simonds

Filled with delectable recipes, hands-on family activities, and traditional tales to read aloud, this extraordinary collection will inspire families everywhere to re-create the magic of Chinese holidays in their own homes. They can feast on golden New Year’s dumplings and tasty moon cakes, build a miniature boat for the Dragon Boat Festival and a kite at Qing Ming, or share the story of the greedy Kitchen God or the valiant warrior Hou Yi. This stunning compilation from bestselling cookbook author Nina Simonds and Leslie Swartz of the Children’s Museum, Boston, is the perfect gift for families that have embraced Chinese holidays for generations–and for those just beginning new traditions.

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Happy New Year! : Kung-hsi fa-ts’ai!

By Demi

This joyful exploration of the rituals of the Chinese New Year celebration is filled with illustrations and labels explaining the images associated with the festival, including lion dances, firecrackers, heavenly beings, and food symbolism.

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Happy, happy Chinese New Year!

By Demi

On the eve of the new moon, a special feast is prepared. . . . The first 15 days of the new year are spent celebrating with lion dances, firecrackers, and other activities. Demi’s characteristic tiny, lively figures illustrate each page, with several spreads devoted to small, labeled pictures identifying things associated with the holiday. Infused with joy and filled with information.

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Celebrating Chinese New Year

By Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith

Ten-year-old Ryan Leong and his family are busy getting ready to host a huge New Year’s Day dinner for their extended family in San Francisco’s Chinatown. In eye-catching photographs and spirited prose, this book offers a look into the celebration of cherished traditions with added contemporary touches.

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Celebrate Chinese New Year

By Carolyn Otto

Celebrate Chinese New Year is the latest, timely addition to National Geographic’s popular Holidays Around the World series. With 25 colorful images and a simple, educational text, the book is a lively invitation to revel in this child-friendly, national and international holiday. Carolyn Otto brings the historical and cultural aspects of the Chinese New Year into focus, and young readers experience the full flavor of an event celebrated by over a billion people in China, and countless others worldwide.

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Lion Dancer: Ernie Wan’s Chinese New Year

By Kate Waters

On the Chinese New Year, six-year-old Ernie will perform his first Lion Dance. An intimate look at a Chinese household as the family shares a proud moment with Ernie. A strong supplement for its immediacy, its vibrant color, and its sympathetic look at a Chinese family.

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Dat’s New Year

By Linda Smith

An easy-to-read text from this series which looks at special occasions in different cultures and religions to show how they are celebrated. The text is accompanied by specially commissioned photographs and features ideas for activities.

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It’s Chinese New Year

By Richard Sebra

Do you like holidays? Learn all about how and why people celebrate different holidays.

Carefully leveled text and fresh, vibrant photos engage young readers in learning about the traditions and celebrations of Chinese New Year. Age-appropriate critical thinking questions and a photo glossary help build nonfiction learning skills.

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D is for Dragon Dance

By Ying Chang Compestine

A is for Acrobats. B is for Balls. C is for Calligraphy. D is for Dragon Dance. From firecrackers to noodles, from red envelopes to the zodiac, young readers are introduced to the exciting traditions of the Chinese New Year in this accessible and visually stunning homage to the holiday.

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Chinese New Year Colors

By Rich Lo

This bilingual color concept book celebrates a rainbow of traditional objects seen during the Chinese New Year. Hóng is the color of explosive firecrackers! Jīn is the hue of lucky coins. Zŏng is the shade of sweet peanut puffs. Welcome to the festivities of the Chinese New Year, where symbolic gifts, foods, and objects come together in a celebration of beautiful colors. This vibrant, simple, and highly graphic bilingual book is the perfect introduction to Chinese and English words for colors as it honors one of the biggest holidays around the world.

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Kids Polish

Li świe̥tuje chiński Nowy Rok = Li’s Chinese New Year

By Fang Wang

New Year is almost here, and Li must decide which animal he will be in the special school assembly. Should he be a fierce tiger, or maybe a strong ox? This year is special, because Li’s new cousin will be born soon! Author Fang Wang takes us through the 12 zodiac animals in the story. The end of the book features facts and activities relating to Chinese New Year.

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Kids Spanish

Max Celebra el Año Nuevo Chino

By Adria F. Klein

Max helps his friend Lily and her family celebrate the Chinese New Year. Flowers, oranges, and special candy are all part of the fun!

Max celebra el Año Nuevo chino con Lily y su familia. ¡Hay flores, naranjas y unos dulces especiales!

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