"Baby Henry is celebrating his one-month birthday, with everyone in his Chinese-American family making extensive preparations for the festivities, especially his big sister, Jenny, and their grandmother, Gnin-Gnin. Look (Love as Strong as Ginger, 1999) tells the story in present tense with Jenny as the narrator describing all the special foods and decorations, guests, and presents that make the traditional celebration part of her family heritage. Her grandmother skillfully involves Jenny in all the preparations and gives her the extra dose of love any new big sister needs. The story is rather flighty and episodic, but since a bright, take-charge little girl is the narrator, perhaps that is just realistic fiction. Heo’s (Yoshi’s Feast, 2000, etc.) delightfully naïve illustrations perpetuate the notion that Jenny is in charge of this story, both in words and in pictures, and the flat perspective and whirling background details of the pencil, oil, and collage illustrations offer a cheery, child-like view of Jenny’s world. Bright, colorful, busy, and jumpy (just like real life in any happy household with a healthy newborn), this story will be of special interest to Chinese-American families and to parents of adopted Chinese children, but has universal appeal. (glossary) (Picture book. 4-8)" www.kirkusreviews.com

This book is about how Jen who is a big sister, helps her mom and “Gnin Gnin” which means grandmother prepare for her younger brother’s First moon birthday. Her grandmother came to help out and watch Jen while her mother is in the hospital. Jen describes her as her grandmother who is not to be called granny but only “Gnin Gnin”. She describes her grandmother as a person who makes everything by hand. This book is about the things that Jen and her “Gnin Gnin” must do in order to celebrate her younger brother’s first moon birthday. It teaches young Jen of the traditions and why they do certain things. For example, writing her younger brother name on special red paper in traditional Chinese characters. Henrys name in chinses is “long” which uses the character for dragon, what is also interesting is that the character used also looks like a dragon. It also goes into other Chinese tradition like a soup that they make to help her mom make milk for the baby. In the end they gather up all the things they made and eat and place them around the baby. This is great book to show what types of Chinese traditions are there and help give children a good window into how some traditions may be similar to their own. ( )

I really enjoyed reading Henry’s First-Moon Birthday. I felt the author wanted to show how important traditions are in families. This book is about a girl named Jenny and her family. Jenny is an older sister to her baby brother. Jenny’s baby brother is having his first-moon birthday and Jenny is in charge as she says. Jenny however doesn’t understand why her baby brother deserves this big celebration when all he does is eat, sleep, and poop. A first-moon birthday, I learned, is a name for a baby’s one-month birthday celebration in Chinese culture. The day is spent with Jenny and her grandmother preparing for the big celebration by making the food and decorating the house. Even though she knows her brother wont remember much of this day, she hopes that one day he will grow up and appreciate that Jenny took charge. You can tell from the illustrations how excited Jenny is to help her grandmother out in preparing for this big day and how much love she has for her family. ( )

This was a fun story presented from the little girls perspective. It sounds almost like she is describing snapshots of the day because most pages start with "This is..." You can tell Jen loves her grandmother very much and is also a great big sister. I appreciate how the author includes a glossary of Chinese words in the front of the book. This book would be great for lessons on Chinese culture and traditions. It would also be wonderful during a unit on family. ( )

Jenny's baby brother is one month old and is getting all the attention. Mom eases the tension by giving Jenny credit for helping with her brothers first moon birthday. ( )