Friday, September 14, 2007

Mei-Ling's Dumplings


My younger sister, Jenny, has had a big year. She married a great guy this past June, graduated with an MA in Elementary Education from U.Penn, and was recently selected as one of 12 finalists in a children's book competition.

Mei-Ling's Dumplings is a story she wrote for her Master's program. She submitted it to the ABC Children's Picture Book Competition (http://www.abcbookcompetition.org/third_comp/index.htm), a contest that solicits works from unpublished authors. Finalists are paired up with an illustrator who draws a mock-up of their manuscript. (The illustration above was created by artist, Lisa J. Roberts.) The winner is then selected through an online vote and receives a royalty-based contract and 1,000 copies of their book to market on their own.

Mei-Ling's Dumplings was inspired by our own mother, Mei-Ling Hsu, dumpling maker extraordinaire. It tells the tale of a plucky young Taiwanese immigrant of the same name who attempts to befriend her classmates at her new school. Some of them mock her for bringing dumplings for lunch. Instead of retaliating, she rises above and wins them over by focusing on their commonalities.

This is the only children's story I've come across that features a young Taiwanese-American protagonist. Its message is not only hugely relevant to children of Taiwanese descent, but to any child who has ever felt alienated by his or her peers. It takes just a few minutes to place your vote. You can vote once a day.

Please join with me in making sure this important and inspirational tale finds its way onto bookstore shelves.


2 comments:

Judy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Judy said...

Judy, I found your blog through Cindy's new blog. Your little boy is so cute.

I hope your sister's book will get published. I also went to Penn for my MS.

My name is Judy, too. I used to live in Lafayette Hill, PA. I now live in Los Angeles. I was born in Taiwan. My husband and I are adopting a baby boy from St. Lucy's. We are waiting for our first decree. I wonder if we had ever met before when I was living in Philly. I attended TAC-EC many times in the mid 90s.
We flew into Philly last week and drove to NYC. We had to stop to get a cheesesteak from "Pat's" before we left the city. LOL.


my email :hopeforbaby2007@yahoo.com. I would love to hear from you and share your adoption journey.

take care. (sorry for the long email and the unintentional deleted comments.)

Judy