‘Rabbit Mooncakes’ For Kids
September 20, 2007
Rabbit Mooncakes, a children’s book set during the Harvest Moon Festival and featuring the story of two young Chinese girls, is set to be reissued this month.
Rabbit Mooncakes, by Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer, focuses on two sisters, Hoong Yee and Hoong Wei, as they celebrate the Harvest Moon Festival with their family in Queens, New York. Hoong Wei is fearful of playing the piano during the festival, and she must eliminate her fear to enjoy the festival with her family.
Krakauer said the idea for the book was born after a trip her younger sister, Hoong Wei, took to China in 1985. Looking at the family’s books that have recorded the history of the family for generations, the only names she saw were of uncles and male cousins.
“Imagine how puzzled Hoong Wei must have been to see no trace, no mention of her name or of mine!” Krakauer said.
Krakauer became “indignant, incredulous and intrigued.” She decided “to write another kind of book about my enigmatic family” that would include everyone, especially the star of the story, Hoong Wei.
“As a child, I loved to read and was never able to find stories that reflected a Chinese American cultural experience,” said Krakauer, who grew up in a Jewish-Italian neighborhood in Queens, where “it was natural for me to think in Chinese and react in Yiddish. It was important for me to tell this story about my family as a way to invite my readers to think about their own unique family and traditions.”
Krakauer’s first love was music: she matriculated at Oberlin College, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and the Manhattan School of Music, where she earned a master’s degree in Piano Performance.
The book was originally published by Little, Brown and Company in 1994, after the manuscript was entered in a competition held by the publisher. Though Rabbit Mooncakes was well-received upon its initial release, Krakauer — who is married with three children and currently serves as executive director of the Queens Council on the Arts — noted that the birth of her third child and a new job at the time made the writing process a challenge.
Rabbit Mooncakes eventually fell out of print and would likely have remained so were it not for Heatherly Bucher, a founder of California-based press MoonRattles, who found a copy in a used bookstore last year. Bucher and her family (she has adopted daughters from China) enjoyed the book, and she made the decision to print a new edition of it, which will be in bookstores on Sept. 21. Krakauer is now writing new stories dealing with Chinese holidays.
MoonRattles is a new press devoted to Asian-themed children’s literature. This new edition will feature new artwork by Krakauer, as well as her mother’s mooncake recipes. It is aimed at children aged 3-9 and in grades 1-3.
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