Mei LI (Thomas Handforth) **After spending an eventful day at the fair held on New Year's Eve, Mei Li arrives home just in time to greet the Kitchen God.
This children's book tells the story of a little Chinese girl who slips away from her family to see the big city of Peking (now, Beijing) in the 1930s. The story is too long and has no compelling flow, but the illustrations stand the test of time and the picture of life before Mao is informing.
The book won the 1939 Caldecott Medal for best illustration in a children's book, the second book to win that award.
