A New Year's Reunion

In China, more than 100 million migrant workers labor in faraway places and only return home for a few days at New Year's (for them, it's Jan. 23 this year).

In A New Year's Reunion, writer Yu Li Qiong and gifted illustrator Zhu Cheng Liang have created a fascinating glimpse of this way of life in a story about Maomao, a girl who delights in being with her father during China's New Year's festivities.

The family makes sticky rice balls, enjoys the firecrackers, and watches a parade with a dragon dance. Her father gives Maomao a fortune coin. By the time he is ready to leave again, she gives him a gift that will remind him of their life together in love (Candlewick Press, 2011).