In Gai See: What You Can See in Chinatown a Chinese boy and girl travel through a Chinatown market and describe what they see, buy and eat. The items described and bought are reflective of what season it is (in Summer there are fruits and vegetables, for example). The book is a tour of Chinese culture that is rooted in the different seasons.
Looking at the readability lexile, the language is at a preschool to kindergarten level with simple and common themes along with rhyming and repeating phrases (a slew of adjectives followed by the refrain, "On a Sunday morning"). Cognitively, I would place the text at an early elementary level because of the reliance of simple, easy to understand subjects such as: time, seasons, concept of buying, family and food. Socially, I would place the book at a kindergarten level because the two children characters are working with their parents, going to new places and learning about new places.
When examining the characteristics of high quality literature, the characters face problems and issues that are important to students, namely, the issue of discovering your culture and working with family to shop/support the family's well being. Within these actions, there really isn't any problem, per se, but the boy and girl help out with shopping and are loyal to their family, which is a positive behavior to promote. The characters are relatively simple, but it is also an early children's book. The boy and girl's emotions are largely of wonder and happiness at the market. Their main strength is their ability to be respectful and helpful at the market with any weakness being their youth and inability to help out more.
Although the book is short and there isn't a lot of text, the multileveled themes I saw shown in the words and illustrations were: family, culture and working as a team (mainly through the act of shopping at the Gai See/Chinese market). While reading about these actions, the higher thought processes seen is the ability to draw an inference about what is being described by the Chinese words (cheong-fun, choi sum, gai see).
After reading the text I did not observe any stereotypes. I felt it was an honest and straightforward view of a Chinese market and the role the family plays within the market. I did notice the mother did most of the food shopping and cooking, but this may be a reflection of a traditional culture.
From a teacher and student point of view, I think the literature motivates and inspires kids. It is a simple, fun, rhyming, picture-oriented book that shows an upbeat and education cultural view of Chinese markets. Through this, the book expands knowledge of the academic field by studying cultures, in the vein of social studies.
The literary elements I saw in Gai See were plot: developing an order of events, setting as a mood and readability. The plot’s order of events was based on the seasons and how the weather corresponded with the foods available in the market. In Summer there are tofu blocks, cold soybean milk and dragon fruit. The setting as a mood is shown through the: people, sounds, foods and goods that paint a picture of the market and culture within it. Finally, the readability of the text is presented clearly through simple words, simple pictures, short sentences, rhyming and a glossary of Chinese terms in the back of the book.
The illustrations in the text are quite simple. There is a white background on almost all pages with back marker outline shaded in with vibrant colors. With the shade of colors and almost always-white background, the characters and illustrations pop or stick out when you see them.
One idea I had for a minilesson was to investigate, as a class, if there is anything like a Gai See/Chinese Market in Minneapolis. You could take students on a virtual online tour of the Midtown Global Market showing the individual shops and cultural differences. Also, the farmer's market offers different cultural foods. Perhaps I could tie this back in with the Farmer's Market book I profiled earlier in my book reports.
After reading Gai See: What You Can See in Chinatown, I think kindergarten to early elementary students would most enjoy this book, especially because of the rhyming and glossary in back to explain any confusing words.
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