Synopsis from the Publisher:
A young boy realizes, thanks to his family, that he can enjoy both his Chinese and North American cultures through his favourite dishes
Max loves his family’s Cantonese meals, like steamed rice and gai lan greens with oyster sauce, homemade dumplings, and scallion bread. But sometimes he can’t help thinking about French fries, tacos, and ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.
For his birthday dinner, Max is really hoping for spaghetti and meatballs, but instead he and his family are headed to Maa Maa and Ye Ye’s house for a celebration dinner—and Max is pretty sure that spaghetti won’t be served in the familiar blue bowls that came all the way from Hong Kong with his grandparents. But Max is delighted to discover that his understanding family has discovered a way to bring two cultures together with delicious dishes that are a combination of all the foods he loves.
Based on the author’s own experiences growing up, The Blue Bowl will speak to many children and adults alike with similar experiences and bring a new perspective to those who do not share in this experience. With deliciously eye-catching illustrations and descriptive, inviting text, readers will be reminded of all their favourite foods as they follow along with Max’s story.
My Thoughts:
As a mixed race kid of mixed race parents, raising mixed race sons and now mixed race grandchildren, this book, The Blue Bowl, is a perfect love letter to families like mine. As I look in my kitchen cabinet and bring out some of the chawan (rice bowls) that I inherited from family members that have since passed, it really is about the food memories from their kitchen, and then how I am able to fuse those memories with the local fusion food I served to my own family. When my adult kids now ask for some of the dishware I have for their own homes, I am glad to give it because I know that the food connections that Max has with the blue bowl will be continued in my own family memories. I donʻt have the Cantonese blue bowls in my house, but my oldest son took all of my blue and white saimin bowls and he eats all of his meals, no matter what it is in those saimin bowls.
Another reason why I will definitely buy this book for my grandchildren is that Leung's poetry/text is so ʻono (delicious) and poignant. Some of the pointing images I found:
superhero cup. . .sparkly purple spoon. . .sesame-scented. . .sweet-sour as well as the longer metaphoric description of ʻblue bowl mean. . .ʻ
As we enter AAPI heritage month and as we enter the end of the school year and the beginning of summer, add this to the summer picturebook a day challenge. Picture books should be enjoyed just for the joy of reading rather than creating curriculum. However, as a long time secondary English teacher who believes that picture books (and poetry) play a large part in secondary curriculum (not as a stand alone unit, but woven through every unit), I would be remiss to not put some thought to suggestions for curriculum using this book.
Suggestions for Curriculum & Classroom Use:
I am stealing this formatting from ALAN (assembly on literature for adolescents of NCTE) reviews
Thematic Analysis: I talked about some of the themes in my thoughts, and I will list a few more below. However, keeping true to Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory, keep in mind that the reader and the text play important roles in the formation of meaning. Meaning, then for your students, as well as you as a reader is negotiated or created based on the relationship between the potential of the text and the reader's "experiential reservoir." This is why my meaning making around this book really has to do with my own dishware and family memories around food. Yours and your studentsʻ may be different and as we present a read aloud to middle school students, themes you did not think about may bubble up.
- Family
- Heritage
- Culture
- Identity
- Self-Worth (there is a small nod to the idea of Asian kids bringing their home foods for lunch and classmates saying something about it - like it stinks. There are other picture books that talk about that if but this one shows Max being self-assured and not caring about those remarks)
Essential Questions
- What are the foods your family cooks or eats for special days?
- What is your ideal birthday meal?
- What do special foods, dishes, items in the house represent for you?
- Free writing for fluency
- Poetry writing
- Craft lessons on things like alliteration, extended metaphor, writing through inanimate objects (like Ted Kooserʻs Abandoned Farmhouse)
- As a counterpoint to another picture book, Thao by Thao Lam
No comments:
Post a Comment