Family Book Club: Starry River of the Sky

Last weekend we had our Family Book Club for the book Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin. This is the same author who wrote Where the Mountain Meets the Moon which I loved. This book was good, though not as good as the other one. It's full of fantasy elements like the moon falling from the sky, people turning into toads, and whole mountains moving overnight. It's set in China which of course called for a full Chinese dinner of Beef Stir Fry, Sesame Noodles, Eggrolls and spicy baked tofu...a first for us, but we wanted to try something new! It was pretty good. Everyone liked it, even Drake. I also bought everyone a pair of fancy chopsticks on Amazon and they had fun trying to use those. Zac was the only one who ate his entire meal that way, but the rest spent a good deal of time working on it, even Tyson.

After dinner we did an artsy craft about the 5 Noxious Animals that it talks about in the book. The Noxious Animals are the spider, the toad, the scorpion, the centipede, and the snake. The project was a charm where you draw the five noxious animals being chased by a tiger and that provides protection from the noxious animals in Chinese culture. While they worked on their project I read them several Chinese Folktale picture books that I picked up at the library. The book talked a lot about Chinese Folktales and I knew that was one of the things they liked most about it, so I got them several others and they have been reading them all week. This was probably not my most inspired book club ever but everyone enjoyed it anyway. Now we are reading Esperanza Rising...so moving from Chinese culture to Mexican. Enchiladas on the menu next time?!