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Books to Celebrate Lunar New Year

Lunar New Year marks the first new moon of the lunar calendar, and is celebrated all over the world! To ring in the Year of the Dragon, we’ve created a list of children’s books to help you celebrate.

Bizzy Bear: Chinese New Year
By Benji Davies
8 Pages | Ages 0-2 | Board Book
ISBN 9781536232011 | Candlewick Press
A festive new title in this phenomenal board book series. Bizzy Bear and his friends get ready to enjoy the Chinese New Year celebrations in this novelty board book full of tabs to slide, push, and pull. Follow Bizzy Bear and enjoy a night of fun festivities!

Dim Sum Palace
By X. Fang
48 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774881989 | Tundra Books
Liddy is so excited about going to the Dim Sum Palace tomorrow with her family that she can’t sleep. So when a delicious smell wafts into her room, she hops out of bed, opens her door and steps into . . . an actual palace of dim sum! There are dumplings, baos, buns and more delicious treats than one girl can possibly eat. Liddy just has to take a bite, but she slips and falls . . . into a bowl of dumpling filling. The chefs are so busy rolling, folding and pinching dough that they don’t notice they’ve prepared a most unusual dumpling for the Empress – a Liddy dumpling! Worst of all, she looks good enough to eat . . .

First Festivals: Lunar New Year
By Ladybird
Illustrated by Debby Rahmalia
12 Pages | Ages 2-5 | Board Book
ISBN 9780241629628 | Ladybird
Discover the celebration of Lunar New Year with this bright, interactive lift-the-flap book! Featuring simple text, gorgeous illustrations and satisfying lift-the-flaps, this book explores common traditions and helps young children understand the importance of this special holiday. Lift the flaps to reveal gifts being opened, a dragon dance being performed, a lantern taking to the skies and firecrackers and fireworks exploding in the night sky. The First Festivals series invites children to explore the world’s culture from the comfort of their home, encourages the development of hand-eye coordination and is recommended for children aged 2 and over.

Happy Lunar New Year! (Sesame Street)
By Sonali Fry
Illustrated by Barry Goldberg
26 Pages | Ages 0-3 | Board Book
ISBN 9780593648902 | Random House BFYR
Celebrate the Lunar New Year on Sesame Street with Ji-Young, Lily, and Elmo! Elmo learns about different Lunar New Year celebrations from his friends on Sesame Street. Ji-Young tells Elmo about Soellal, which is celebrated in Korea. And Lily the tiger shares traditions from her Chinese Lunar New Year festivities. This colorful board book is filled with good fortune and fun for everyone! It makes a great Lunar New Year gift for young boys and girls.

I Want to Be Spaghetti!
By Kiera Wright-Ruiz
Illustrated by Claudia Lam
56 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593529874 | Kokila
Even from Ramen’s small shelf in the supermarket, they see spaghetti propaganda everywhere. They want to be celebrated, too. Maybe, Ramen misguidedly thinks, I have to change to be loved like that. “I want to be spaghetti!” they proclaim to the dismay of the rest of the instant noodle section. But when Ramen’s brought home and placed in a warm bowl of broth alongside new friends like Chashu, Narutomaki, and Nori, they realize they’ve always been perfect exactly the way they are. 

Lunar New Year: A Celebration of Family and Fun
By Mary Man-Kong
Illustrated by Michelle Jing Chan
32 Pages | Ages 2-5 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593649466 | Golden Books
Every year, millions of Asian families come together to celebrate the first new moon in the sky. Now preschoolers can learn about the zodiac animals, the delicious food, the exciting parades, and all the fun traditions. Filled with colorful illustrations and simple, yet informative text, this Big Golden Book is perfect for reading again and again to the whole family. Happy Lunar New Year!

Night Market Rescue
By Charlotte Cheng
Illustrated by Amber Ren
32 Pages | Ages 4-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593531723 | Rocky Pond Books
A stray dog stumbles upon the gift of friendship – and maybe even the promise of home – while wandering the delight-filled night market in Taipei. While resting on a stoop, Gogo smells something sweet and spicy on the breeze. It leads him to a place he’s never been – a bustling night market where vendors sell delicious treats. As he wanders, sniffing for scraps, GoGo discovers something else as well: a little girl who has gotten separated from her parents. He knows he can help and guides her through the market . . . to where her worried parents wait for her – with open arms for their daughter and GoGo, their new pet!

Rainbow Shopping
By Qing Zhuang
40 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780823449774 | Holiday House
On a rainy Saturday, a young girl feels as gray as a pigeon. Since moving from China to New York City, Mom, Dad, and Grandma have been very busy working. But a trip to Mom’s favorite Chinatown store to find the best produce, seafood, and spices for dinner just might turn the girl’s day around. Later on, Dad steams, boils, fries, and stir-fries all the ingredients while girl and Grandma taste-test. After cozy goodnights, a final dream spread shows the family walking hand-in-hand in rainbow colors – an affirmation of love and support even on rainy, gray days. Inspired by Qing Zhuang’s experience as a first generation Chinese American, Rainbow Shopping explores a young child’s feelings of loneliness and discovery with tenderness and humor. Qing uses watercolor, colored pencil, and crayon to beautifully recreate NYC’s Chinatown neighborhood. Filled with warmth and details of city life, this story about a working-class family is one readers can return to again and again.

Ra Pu Zel and the Stinky Tofu
By Ying Chang Compestine
Illustrated by Crystal Kung
40 Pages | Ages 5-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593533055 | Rocky Pond Books
The story of Rapunzel where she’s being locked in a tower by a witch is a good one – but it’s not totally the truth. The real story is about a young princess in China named Ra Pu Zel who doesn’t want to talk to princes or look proper. What Pu Zel wants is to cook and eat in peace, her long hair neatly braided to keep it out of her food. And when she gets tired of everyone telling her what to do, she locks herself in a tower with her dog Bao. Although princes from everywhere try to convince her to come down, it’s not until a young chef arrives with an intriguing food to share that Ra Pu Zel finally has a reason.

Ten Little Dumplings
By Larissa Fan
Illustrated by Cindy Wume
48 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735266193 | Tundra Books
In the city of Tainan, there lives a very special family – special because they have ten sons who do everything together. Their parents call them their ten little dumplings, as both sons and dumplings are auspicious. But if you look closely, you’ll see that someone else is there, listening, studying, learning and discovering her own talent – a sister. As this little girl grows up in the shadow of her brothers, her determination and persistence help her to create her own path in the world . . . and becomes the wisdom she passes on to her own daughter, her own little dumpling. Based on a short film made by the author, inspired by her father’s family in Taiwan, Ten Little Dumplings looks at some unhappy truths about the place of girls in our world in an accessible, inspiring and hopeful way.

The Goblin Twins
By Frances Cha
Illustrated by Jaime Kim
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780593480212 | Crown BFYR
Doki and Kebi are two Korean magical goblin twin brothers who couldn’t be more different! Kebi loves to scare people (maybe a little too much) and explore! Doki would rather give people bags of gold when he’s not reading a book! Despite their differences, Doki and Kebi are inseparable. When it’s time for the goblin tricksters to move, the brothers decide to make their new home together in a strange, unknown land . . . New York City! As they prepare for the new customs of Halloween, Doki and Kebi are in for a surprise in this new holiday adventure inspired by the Korean mythology of dokkaebi.

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2024 OLA Super Conference

Hello book lovers! The Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers team is headed to downtown Toronto for the OLA Super Conference on January 25th and 26th at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. We’ll be showcasing many of our children’s books at booth 718/720/722/724! Come by and say hello to our many staff volunteers.

We will also be hosting author signings! This is based on first come, first served: one copy per person while quantities last. You must be in line for the signing to receive a complimentary copy.

Looking for literary assets for your schools and libraries? We’ve got you covered – ask about our catalogs, bookmarks, art cards, and more!

And don’t forget to follow us online @tundrabooks and @penguinteenca as we post live from the show floors!

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Cover Reveal: Team Park

Tundra is very excited to be publishing Team Park on September 10, 2024! Written by Angela Ahn, Team Park is about Evan Park who, after a wrist injury derails his plans to take part in an upcoming ninja competition, decides to enter into a local race – this time, with his whole family!

Cover Art: Chris Choi
Cover Design: Gigi Lau

Team Park
By Angela Ahn
240 Pages | Ages 9-12 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774883433 | Tundra Books
Release Date: September 10, 2024
Eleven-year-old Evan Park’s dad believes boys should play team sports, but as much as Evan has tried to like soccer and other team sports, he just doesn’t. And when an accident causes Evan to break his wrist, he is determined that once he heals, he’ll work on finding his thing. Alone. Inspired by his athletic physiotherapist, Evan decides to compete in an upcoming Dominator Ninja Junior Edition competition. It will be part rehab, part fun. If he trains hard enough, he’ll finally have something to put on his empty shelf in the family trophy cabinet. Maybe that would make his dad proud of him for once. But klutzy Evan strikes again! With a newly injured wrist, he can forget about competing in Dominator Ninja – he can’t even hold chopsticks. When his sister encourages him to look beyond a solo competition, they discover a local family race which is more about the experience than the results. Can Evan shift his perspective to rally the whole family to do this event . . . together?

Also by Angela Ahn:

Double O Stephen and the Ghostly Realm
By Angela Ahn
288 Pages | Ages 9-12 | Paperback
ISBN 9780735268296 | Tundra Books
Stephen loves pirates. What he doesn’t love is his name: Stephen Oh-O’Driscoll. He believes when his Korean mother and Irish father gave him this name, that it was just one cruel setup for being teased. Giving things the proper name is important, which is why Stephen thinks that it’s time to update the definition of “pirate.” They’ve got a bad rep, and maybe they deserve some of it, but Stephen still likes a few pirate traditions, like bandannas and eyepatches – he’s just not that into stealing things from people. He has the perfect new word: piventurate. A sailor who passionately seeks adventure. That’s what he wants to be. When he gets suspended from school for doing proper piventurate-in-training things (using sticks to practice sword fighting), his mother doesn’t let him sit around doing nothing, instead she takes him to a museum. At the museum everything changes. Stephen finds himself in a strange new place, face-to-face with a real pirate. A pirate ghost. Captain Sapperton needs Stephen’s help to cross to the other side, and his former ghost crew are intent on making sure Stephen follows through, whatever it takes. Stephen is about to discover the true meaning of piventurate, and much to his surprise, his adventure will not only take him farther into the ghostly realm, but also closer to home, where long-held family secrets reveal surprising ties to the spirit world.

Peter Lee’s Notes From the Field
By Angela Ahn
Illustrated by Julie Kwon
312 Pages | Ages 9-12 | Paperback
ISBN 9780735268265 | Tundra Books
Eleven year-old Peter Lee has one goal in life: to become a paleontologist. Okay, maybe two: to get his genius kid-sister, L.B., to leave him alone. But his summer falls apart when his real-life dinosaur expedition turns out to be a bust, and he watches his dreams go up in a cloud of asthma-inducing dust. Even worse, his grandmother, Hammy, is sick, and no one will talk to Peter or L.B. about it. Perhaps his days as a scientist aren’t quite behind him yet. Armed with notebooks and pens, Peter puts his observation and experimental skills to the test to see what he can do for Hammy. If only he can get his sister to be quiet for once – he needs time to sketch out a plan.

Swimming into Trouble: Julia on the Go! #1
By Angela Ahn
Illustrated by Julie Kim
176 Pages | Ages 7-10 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774881880 | Tundra Books
Available February 13, 2024
As a member of the Vipers Swim Team, Julia Nam’s always in the pool. Mountainview Community Center is like her second home, not only because swimming at the aquatic center is her favorite thing in the world, but also because her parents run the center’s sushi café. Julia would much rather be in the pool than sitting behind the counter of Sushi on the Go! watching other people swim. She’s the youngest swimmer on the team, but definitely not the slowest. Julia can’t wait for Personal Best Day – the most important day for all of the swimmers. If their times are good enough, they can enter a big regional swim meet. But then the worst thing happens. A sharp pain in Julia’s ear reveals an infection and she’s forbidden to swim for ten days. How can she get timed during Personal Best Day when she’s not allowed in the water? Julia is desperate to get back in the pool, even if it means having to go behind her parents’ backs in order to do so. But Julia’s solution lands her in a sticky situation, and it’s going to require the entire community center to come together to help her out of it!

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Tuesdays with Tundra

Tuesdays with Tundra is an ongoing series featuring our new releases. This title is now available in stores and online!

New in Paperback:

The Everlasting Road
By Wab Kinew
272 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735269057 | Tundra Books
Devastated by the loss of her beloved older brother to cancer, Bugz returns to the place where she can always find solace and strength: the Floraverse. Over the past year, she has gained back all that she had lost in that virtual world, and while the remaining ClanLess members still plot against her, she is easily able to overcome their attacks. Even better, she’s been secretly working on a bot that will be both an incredible weapon and a source of comfort: Waawaate. With the Waawaate bot looking exactly like the brother she misses so much – even acting so much like him – Bugz feels ready to show him off to Feng, who has become a constant companion in the Verse, and she cannot wait to team up with both friend and bot to secure her dominance once and for all. But Feng has his own issues to deal with, especially when news that his parents are alive and want to contact him threatens to send his new life on the Rez into upheaval. As they work through their complicated feelings of grief and loss, Feng and Bugz find themselves becoming ever closer. But disturbances in the Floraverse cannot be ignored, especially when Bugz realizes that her Waawaate bot is growing in powers beyond her control . . . 

We can’t wait to see you reading this title! If you share this book online, remember to use #ReadTundra in your hashtags so that we can re-post.

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New Year, New Boo!

2023 may be in the past, but ghosts are always in our present and future. Let’s celebrate and ring in the new year with a new BOO!

A Super Scary Narwhalloween: A Narwhal and Jelly Book #8
By Ben Clanton
76 Pages | Ages 6-9 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735266742 | Tundra Books
In the hilarious eighth book of this blockbuster graphic novel series, Narwhal and Jelly celebrate the spookiest time of the year – Halloween – with a super twist! Dive into three new stories that are sure to fright and delight! Narwhal loves Halloween – it’s a great excuse to dress up in a spooky and silly costume, like a ghost, a mermaid, a banana or maybe even Marlow the Mustachioed Moose. It’s a skeleTON of fun! Jelly isn’t dressing up, though – he’s a little scared of this time of year, and would prefer to hunker down in a hidey-hole until Halloween is over. But when a scary sea monster makes an appearance and swallows Narwhal (gulp!), can Jelly, with the help of some super friends, pluck up the courage to save his best bud?

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls
By Cherie Dimaline
280 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735265639 | Tundra Books
Winifred has lived in the apartment above the cemetery office with her father, who works in the crematorium all her life, close to her mother’s grave. With her sixteenth birthday only days away, Winifred has settled into a lazy summer schedule, lugging her obese Chihuahua around the grounds in a squeaky red wagon to visit the neglected gravesides and nursing a serious crush on her best friend, Jack. Her habit of wandering the graveyard at all hours has started a rumor that Winterson Cemetery might be haunted. It’s welcome news since the crematorium is on the verge of closure and her father’s job being outsourced. Now that the ghost tours have started, Winifred just might be able to save her father’s job and the only home she’s ever known, not to mention being able to stay close to where her mother is buried. All she has to do is get help from her con-artist cousin to keep up the rouse and somehow manage to stop her father from believing his wife has returned from the grave. But when Phil, an actual ghost of a teen girl who lived and died in the ravine next to the cemetery, starts showing up, Winifred begins to question everything she believes about life, love and death. Especially love.

Ghostlight
By Kenneth Oppel
400 Pages | Ages 10+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735272354 | Puffin Canada
The story of the tragic death of sixteen-year-old Rebecca Strand and her lighthouse keeper father is just an elaborate tale Gabe tells tourists for his summer job on the Toronto Island. Or so he thought. When his ghost tours awaken Rebecca’s spirit, Gabe is drawn into a world far darker than any ghost story he’s ever heard. Rebecca reveals that she and her father were connected to The Order, a secret society devoted to protecting the world from “the wakeful and wicked dead” – malevolent spirits like Viker, the ghost responsible for their deaths. But now the Order has disappeared and Viker is growing even stronger, and he’ll stop at nothing to wreak chaos and destruction on the living. Gabe and his friends – both living and dead – must find a way to stop Viker before they all become lost souls.

House of Ash and Bone
By Joel A. Sutherland
336 Pages | Ages 12+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774880968 | Tundra Books
Seventeen-year-old Josephine Jagger is a talented writer with special abilities she doesn’t fully understand. Over the years she has developed methods to cope with the voices she hears in her head, but the old house her family has inherited in Vermont makes Josephine question what’s real and what’s not more than anything she’s ever encountered before. It’s filled with shadows, and whispers, and the unshakable feeling of being watched. Josephine then catches her first glimpse of a shadowy woman with long hair, pale skin, an impossibly wide smile and hollow pits for eyes. Her name is Dorcas, the ghost of a witch who died three hundred years ago. She has summoned the family to Vermont to ensnare them – then consume them – in order to rise from the grave and live again . . .

How to Make Friends with a Ghost
By Rebecca Green
40 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Paperback
ISBN 9781774880401 | Tundra Books
What do you do when you meet a ghost? One: Provide the ghost with some of its favorite snacks, like mud tarts and earwax truffles. Two: Tell your ghost bedtime stories (ghosts love to be read to). Three: Make sure no one mistakes your ghost for whipped cream or a marshmallow when you aren’t looking! If you follow these few simple steps and the rest of the essential tips in How to Make Friends with a Ghost, you’ll see how a ghost friend will lovingly grow up and grow old with you. A whimsical story about ghost care, Rebecca Green’s debut picture book is a perfect combination of offbeat humor, quirky and sweet illustrations, and the timeless theme of friendship.

Super Friends: Simon and Chester #4
By Cale Atkinson
152 Pages | Ages 6-9 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774880012 | Tundra Books
Welcome to the world of Simon and Chester, ghost and boy duo extraordinaire. Chester lives with his Grandma, his cat Mr. Pickles and Simon the ghost. Simon and Chester are best friends. Their attic is the location for some of the best activities known to humankind: making up songs about passersby, acting out scenes from Simon’s exciting Dr. Darington novels and creating the incredible Treat-A-Matic snack dispenser. But Chester has also befriended a non-ghost named Amie, and she is coming over to work on their science fair project. Amie has a surprising idea for this project, and Simon and Chester’s friendship will be put to the test as a result. Will Simon behave? Will Amie come between the two friends? Will an invisible Simon make fart noises that Chester has to explain? All will be revealed . . .

The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt
By Riel Nason
Illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler
48 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735264472 | Tundra Books
Ghosts are supposed to be sheets, light as air and able to whirl and twirl and float and soar. But the little ghost who is a quilt can’t whirl or twirl at all, and when he flies, he gets very hot. He doesn’t know why he’s a quilt. His parents are both sheets, and so are all of his friends. (His great-grandmother was a lace curtain, but that doesn’t really help cheer him up.) He feels sad and left out when his friends are zooming around and he can’t keep up. But one Halloween, everything changes. The little ghost who was a quilt has an experience that no other ghost could have, an experience that only happens because he’s a quilt . . . and he realizes that it’s OK to be different.

Preorder Today:

Lockjaw
By Matteo L. Cerilli
328 Pages | Ages 14+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774882306 | Tundra Books
Release Date: June 4, 2024
Chuck Warren died tragically at the old abandoned mill, but Paz Espino knows it was no accident – there’s a monster under the town, and she’s determined to kill it before anyone else gets hurt. She’ll need the help of her crew – inseparable friends, bound by a childhood pact stronger than diamonds, distance or death – to hunt it down. But she’s up against a greater force of evil than she ever could have imagined. With shifting timeframes and multiple perspectives, Lockjaw is a small-town ghost story, where monsters living and dead haunt the streets, the homes and the minds of the inhabitants. For readers of Wilder Girls and The Haunted, this trans YA horror book by an incredible debut author will grab you and never let you go.

Tundra Book Group