Little Bookworm and I love learning about holidays and traditions around the world. So we were excited to check out the latest children’s books for Chinese New Year! Each of these stories shares a unique message, and each inspired us to try a new craft and activity.

Standard Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a commission from purchases you make through the links in this post. I received copies of these books in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Playing with Lanterns

Written by Wang Yage, illustrated by Zhu Chengliang, and translated by Helen Wang

This book follows a young girl named Zhao Di and her friends as they take part in the Chinese New Year celebrations in their community. Each night, they celebrate with their lanterns, until the final night when it is time to smash the lanterns. This book not only introduces the tradition of smashing the lanterns from Shaanxi province in northwest China, but it contains the universal sadness that kids often feel when their favorite holiday is over. The back of the book includes an author’s note with more information on the custom and the history of it.

Paper Lanterns

This book inspired us to try making our own paper lanterns. In the story, the kids celebrate with a variety of lanterns. This encouraged us to try making some different lanterns. We started by folding and cutting shapes into a piece of construction paper. We then glued a piece of tissue paper on the back of the paper, and wrapped it in a tube shape. Next, we poked holes in the top of the tube and tied string through the holes to hang our lantern. There are lots of ideas in the illustrations of the book to inspire young kids while they create their own lanterns.

Related Post: Chinese New Year Books and Activities for Kids

Friends are Friends, Forever

Written by Dane Liu and illustrated by Lynn Scurfield

In this beautiful book of friendship, a young girl named Dandan celebrates her last Lunar New Year with her friend Yueyue. Since Dandan and her family are moving to America the next day, it is even more important that they enjoy their traditions together. Especially their special tradition creating red paper snowflake ornaments. Yueyue gifts Dandan with materials to continue their tradition in her new home, but Dandan finds that it is hard to make friends in this new place. When she eventually makes a new friend, she decides to share her traditions with her. The back of the book includes an author’s note, background information on paper cutting, and instructions for making a paper snowflake.

Snowflake Ornaments

In this story, the young girls make snowflakes out of red paper, and then freeze them into ice in order to create beautiful ornaments to hang from the trees. We were inspired by the book to try this fun activity for ourselves. We used the instructions in the back of the book to create paper snowflakes out of red construction paper.

Next, place them on shallow plates and fill them with water. Lay a piece of string in the top of the plate, and then put it in the freezer and leave it for a few hours to freeze. Then run a little warm water on the underside of the plate and pop the ornaments out. They will look beautiful hanging from the trees in the winter sun!

Do you have any favorite children’s books for Chinese New Year? Share in the comments below!

More Posts You May Enjoy: