Love As Strong As Ginger

by Lenore Look, Stephen T. Johnson (Illustrator)

Overview

Katie loves to show her grandma how to dress a Barbie...and GninGnin loves to show Katie how to make rice dumplings. More than anything, Katie longs to go with GninGnin to work, to crack a mountain of crabs alongside her at the crab cannery.
One day Katie gets her wish, but nothing is the way she'd imagined it. GninGnin swings a heavy mallet from sunup to sundown in a noisy, smelly room, earning barely enough for bus fare and a fish for dinner. That evening, when Katie eats the delicious meal that GninGnin has cooked — "made with love as strong as ginger and dreams as thick as black-bean paste" — she has a new understanding of her beloved grandma's hard life, and the sacrifices she's made to give her granddaughter a brighter future.
All the poignancy of Lenore Look's beautifully realized story — based on her own childhood memories of her Chinese immigrant grandmother — is captured in Caldecott Honor Medalist Stephen T. Johnson's sensitive, expressive pastels.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780689812484
Publisher:	Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	05/01/1999
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.30(d)
Lexile:	AD460L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Stephen T. Johnson is the creator of such well-known children’s books as My Little Red Toolbox, My Little Blue Robot, and Alphabet City, recipient of a Caldecott Honor, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year, and a Society of Illustrators Gold Medal. His artwork can be found in permanent and public collections including the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and the DeKalb Avenue Subway Station in Brooklyn, New York. Stephen is a professor at the University of Kansas, and he lives in Lawrence, Kansas.

Lenore Look is the author of Ruby Lu, Brave and True, an ALA Notable Book, as well as its sequels, Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything and Ruby Lu, Star of the Show. Her picture books include Love as Strong as Ginger, illustrated by Caldecott Honor artist Stephen T. Johnson; Henry’s First-Moon Birthday; and Uncle Peter’s Amazing Chinese Wedding, both illustrated by Yumi Heo. She lives in Hong Kong.

Editorial Reviews

Johnson reflects the tone of quiet celebration in small, square pastel-and-watercolor illustrations centered on the slightly larger pages. He focuses on faces, full of strength even when they're weary; on food, prepared with loving care to be beautiful as well as nourishing and delicious; and on the hands that do the work.
— The Horn Book Magazine

Joanna Long