Roses Sing on New Snow

 

Front cover of the "Roses Sing on New Snow" 

Roses Sing on New Snow a tale by Paul Yee and Harvey Chan is a traditional literature book. This book has won the Ruth Schwartz award which is when children's books have been recognized for their artistic excellence in Canadian children's literature. This would be a good book for the 5-9 age group.

Roses Sing on New Snow is about Maylin a young Chinese girl living in ChinaTown. She is the cook at her fathers restaurant but never seems to get the credit she deserves. Instead her father gives credit to her two lazy brothers for all of the work she does. One day they get word that the governor of South China is coming to visit the city they live in so her father asks her to spare no expense when preparing a dish for the governor. She made a new delectable dish she named "Roses Sing in New Snow" which her father and brothers take to the governor. Once the governor has eaten all of the dishes he points to Maylin's bowl of food and says it reminded him of China! He asks who cooked it and Maylin's father gives his two sons the credit for Maylin's dish. So when the governor asks the sons to remake the recipe and he'll present it to the emperor the family goes back to Maylin to ask her how she did it.  But hey must have missed something because once the governor tastes the dish he calls them imposters! As well as yelling at them trying to figure out what went wrong. So then Maylin comes in and everyone hears that she a women cooked the dish, they are shocked. The governor still wants to take this dish to the Old World back to the Emperor but Maylin refuses because she says this dish is of the New World. So instead of listening to the governors threats Maylin suggests they cook side by side and make the recipe. Although once they've both cooked the dish with all of the same ingredients the two dishes don't taste the same which confuses the governor. But it's all because they were made by two different chefs so nothing was going to come out identical. After that despite the governor's best efforts the emperor never got to taste the New World dish. 

The Governor and Maylin's dishes being compared

I would use this book in my class if I was teaching 1st-3rd grade because it has a cute message. The message being that you have to stand up for what you believe in. For example, Maylin did that when she finally came and told the governor that it was she who had cooked the dish and not her brothers. As well as how it wasn't going to come out the same way she made it because she was the special ingredient to the dish and what she stands for. She stands for the New World and how things are changing. This would be a good book to use when we are learning about Asian countries or when we are learning about other cultures in the world.