In the Leaves

Spring has arrived and Xiao Ming can’t wait to spend the day in the park with his mother. All around them are signs of the season: insects flying, leaves on the trees, and flowers in bloom. Xiao Ming’s mother teaches Xiao Ming how to write the words for these things in Chinese by first drawing pictures of them. Following the highly acclaimed At the Beach and In the Snow, this is Huy Voun Lee’s third book on Chinese character writing.

Xiao Ming and his mother are spending a winter day in the forest, and the snow is the perfect place to draw characters for words such as “tree” and “sparkling.” Xiao Ming’s mother helps him see the picture within each character — a trick sure to appeal to readers new to the Chinese written language. The colorful, intricate illustrations, created by cut-paper collages, will fascinate young children. This book is one of a four-part series by the author about Chinese characters related to the different seasons.