It is the day before New Year and Long-Long's family is preparing for the celebrations. Long-Long is leaving his village for the first time in order to help his grandfather with the cartload of cabbages they must sell in order to buy food and decorations for the festivities. The characters and scenarios they encounter along the way provide a snapshot of life in contemporary China, seen through the eyes of a young child.

 

There are 36 pages in this book. This is a picture book. A picture book uses pictures and text to tell the story. The number of words varies from zero ('wordless') to around 1k over 32 pages. Picture books are typically aimed at young readers (age 3-6) but can also be aimed at older children (7+). This book was published 2005 by Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd .

Catherine Gower lived and worked in China from 1997 to 1999, teaching English and learning Mandarin and Chinese calligraphy. She is now an editor in the English Language Teaching division of Oxford University Press. He Zhihong was born in China in 1970 and graduated from Beijing Academy of Fine Arts, where she studied traditional Chinese painting. She paints on both silk and rice paper. She now lives in Paris and teaches Chinese calligraphy in primary schools. She has four titles published in France.