Love as Strong as Ginger
Reviews
Great for age 7-11 years
Katie loves to show her grandma how to dress a Barbie...and GninGnin loves to show Katie how to make rice dumplings. More than anything, Katie longs to go with GninGnin to work, to crack a mountain of crabs alongside her at the crab cannery.
One day Katie gets her wish, but nothing is the way she'd imagined it. GninGnin swings a heavy mallet from sunup to sundown in a noisy, smelly room, earning barely enough for bus fare and a fish for dinner. That evening, when Katie eats the delicious meal that GninGnin has cooked -- "made with love as strong as ginger and dreams as thick as black-bean paste" -- she has a new understanding of her beloved grandma's hard life, and the sacrifices she's made to give her granddaughter a brighter future.
All the poignancy of Lenore Look's beautifully realized story -- based on her own childhood memories of her Chinese immigrant grandmother -- is captured in Caldecott Honor Medalist Stephen T. Johnson's sensitive, expressive pastels.
One day Katie gets her wish, but nothing is the way she'd imagined it. GninGnin swings a heavy mallet from sunup to sundown in a noisy, smelly room, earning barely enough for bus fare and a fish for dinner. That evening, when Katie eats the delicious meal that GninGnin has cooked -- "made with love as strong as ginger and dreams as thick as black-bean paste" -- she has a new understanding of her beloved grandma's hard life, and the sacrifices she's made to give her granddaughter a brighter future.
All the poignancy of Lenore Look's beautifully realized story -- based on her own childhood memories of her Chinese immigrant grandmother -- is captured in Caldecott Honor Medalist Stephen T. Johnson's sensitive, expressive pastels.
This book is aimed at children in primary school.
This book was published 1999 by Simon & Schuster .
Lenore Look is the author of Ruby Lu, Brave and True, an ALA Notable Book; Love As Strong As Ginger, illustrated by Caldecott Honor artist Stephen T. Johnson; and Henry's First-Moon Birthday, illustrated by Yumi Heo. She lives in Randolph, New Jersey.