Lunar New Year 2021

Gong hei fat choy! That's the Cantonese Lunar New Year greeting meaning "wishing you great happiness and prosperity!" Chinese New Year may be the most well known celebration, but the Lunar New Year is also celebrated in other Asian countries such as Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and Tibet. It is also not simply a one day celebration like traditional new year celebrations; instead it begins on the first new moon of the year (today) and concludes 15 days later with the year's first full moon (February 26). Author Yobe Qiu shared a little bit about how her family celebrates Lunar New Year:

"Lunar New Year is one of the most anticipated holidays for our family. To date, we follow the tradition of preparing a week in advance to ring in all the good fortunes leading up to the new year. There are many things we do; however, we are most serious about eating all the foods with special auspicious meanings, deep cleaning our house, and wearing everything new with at least one new piece of red clothing. This tradition dates back to our great grandparents and we are very excited to pass it down to our daughter so she may learn her culture and appreciate it. To ensure the tradition continues, we published a children's book on how the Asian community celebrates the Lunar New Year!"

Yobe Qiu also has two books available for the holiday, both of which have free ebook versions in honor of Lunar New Year!

"Our Lunar New Year: Celebrating Lunar New Year in Asian Communities"

"Asian Adventures A-Z"

If you would like to listen to "Our Lunar New Year," here is a read aloud version for you!

A few other stories we enjoy when learning about Lunar New Year are:

"The Runaway Wok" by Ying Chang Compestine

"Brandon Makes Jiǎo Zi" by Eugenia Chu (for more information on this book, Eugenia Chu, and a dumpling activity and recipe, head over to my book review of "Brandon Makes Jiǎo Zi")

"My First Chinese New Year" by Karen Katz

I plan to check out more books this year, hopefully I will find more that mention other Asian countries as well! I'm going to use this list as a starting point - 28 Children's Books About the Lunar New Year - and will share more information and activities as I come across them!