A wonderful author’s note provides an explanation of dim sum history and customs. “Everyone eats a little bit of everything” before they are through in this short, lively text set against vibrant full-color art. Don’t read when hungry!įrom CCBC(Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices)Ī young Chinese girl and her family go out to a restaurant for dim sum, and everyone chooses his or her favorite among the “many little dishes”: sweet pork buns, fried shrimp, turnip cakes, egg tarts, and more. There is also a brief explanation of the origin and traditions associated with dim sum.
Front endpapers identify basic ingredients while the back pages show dim sum labeled in both English and English orthography Chinese. A brilliant, red patterned background sets off the flat painted figures, in their traditionally decorated clothing, wielding their chopsticks. The double-page scenes depict the diners at tables and the loaded carts on highly decorative pages. A family sitting around a table picks many different ones, from pork dumplings and fried shrimp to sweet tofu and egg tarts, and tastes them all.
With just a few words per page, Lin introduces us to the Chinese custom of having dim sum, a wide variety of hot and cold snacks, which the diner chooses from rolling carts. Like the pleasures of dim sum, this is a compact treat. Arresting, yet pleasing, combinations of color underscore the dynamic sense of every action portrayed, making even the selection of dishes an important moment, as it can feel to small children. They combine a simplicity of form and design with a delight of patterning that appears in clothing and in backgrounds that are reminiscent of Matisse. Lin’s paintings are graphically striking. On the last spread, an appended note offers translations of the term dim sum, a short history of the tradition, and an explanation of its customs. In the double-page spreads that follow, the family is seated at a table, they choose small dishes of food from the carts wheeled to them by servers, and they share “a little bit of everything.” Tired and full, they end the meal at a table full of empty dishes. The title page shows three little Asian girls and their parents in Chinatown about to enter a restaurant with a sign that advertises dim sum. Ingredients and kitchen tools are scattered across the endpapers, setting the scene for the culinary pleasure to come. This simple, well-designed picture book introduces the experience of dining on dim sum.
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