Celebrate the Year of the Dragon with these fine reads. No better time to feast on Chinese culture, history and folklore. Ed Young’s brilliant The House Baba Built: An Artist’s Childhood in China (Little, Brown, 2011), just won the 2012 APALA Asian/Pacific American Literature Award for Best Picture Book. Click here to read an excerpt at the publisher’s website.

Here are the books I’ve featured here at Alphabet Soup:

♥ The Great Wall of Lucy Wu by Wendy Wan-Long Shang (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2011).

♥ Dumpling Days by Grace Lin (Little, Brown, 2012).

♥ A New Year’s Reunion by Yu Li-Qiong and Zhu Cheng-Liang (Candlewick Press, 2011).

Why yes, all this talk of China has made me hungry. I always love to celebrate the Lunar New Year with dim sum. This year, we tried Mark’s Duck House, across the street from our usual place, Fortune Chinese Seafood Restaurant. And we actually liked it better! I have no idea why we’d never heard of Mark’s before. Their specialty is Peking Duck, which we’ll have to try another time.

I was happy they had all my dim sum favorites:

Of course it’s always fun to read menu boards in Chinese restaurants.

I’m wondering about the Cold Knuckle, too.

Can’t wait to go back!

Dragons signify power and good fortune. 2012 is the Year of the Water Dragon, a period of growth and optimism.

I wish you good luck, good health, and many creative blossomings. ☺

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Copyright © 2012 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.