Henry's First-Moon Birthday

The main character is a little girl. I'm not sure how old she is due to the stylized illustrations, but she's old enough to help cook. Her grandmother is staying with her family temporarily because her mother just had a baby. The baby is now 1 month old. The whole family is getting prepared for the baby's one-month birthday. They draw things with ink, cook food, the dad fixes the car, the mom cleans, they make red-dyed eggs, the girl takes a bath. Then all the relatives and friends come over to celebrate the first-month birthday of the baby.

She gets into a little bit of trouble, but nothing terrible. It's just a list of things that happened, a day in the life of a little Chinese girl. It's unclear if she's just culturally Chinese or if she actually lives in China. The illustrator is, oddly, a Korean woman. The writer seems to be an American-born Chinese woman.

It's okay. It's not bad, but it's not the best book ever. If you're trying to aggressively multicultural-ize your young child, this might help. It's certainly not offensive. The characters perform tasks that are pretty much broken down by traditional gender roles, though (father fixing car, mother cleaning, grandmother cooking, etc.).