Lunar New Year books for children and teens
Lunar New Year and Chinese New Year books for children and teens keep the festival centre stage. Some track a family’s build-up to the day, while others explain reunion dinners, red envelopes, and lion dances, or sketch the festival’s roots. Fiction often threads in identity, family pressure, migration, friendship, and belonging. Non-fiction may compare how the new year is marked across countries. In class, they build cultural knowledge, spark inclusive discussion, and give many readers a welcome moment of recognition. There is a wide range of fiction and non-fiction, plus true stories, picture books, graphic novels, poetry, and diaries for school libraries, independent reading, and teaching across EYFS, KS1, KS2, KS3, and KS4. This list features books by Grace Lin, Malinda Lo, Geraldine McCaughrean, Gene Luen Yang, Sue Lynn Tan, Adeline Yen Mah, Alice Wong, Aram Kim, Eric Huang, and Kevin Tsang.
Lunar New Year themed books for children and teens – our recommendations
Lunar New Year Around the World by Amanda Li, illustrated by Angel Chang
Explore the many different ways the Lunar New Year is celebrated around the world in this beautiful book. Spanning factual narratives from San Francisco, China, Canada, Indonesia, Vietnam and more, the illustrations, and particularly the spectacular front cover, glow with warmth, festive colours and a sense of friendship. This diverse text is highly recommended for upper KS1 and lower KS2.
New Year by Mei Zihan and Qin Leng
Focusing on a father during Lunar New Year, this reflective picture book for 6-10 year olds traces his thoughts as he prepares for the festival while his adult daughter lives overseas. Memories of her childhood sit alongside glimpses of her present life as a literary translator, newly married and settled abroad. With settings that move between Beijing and Paris, the story uses New Year traditions to explore, with great sensitivity, distance, change and the quiet work of learning to let go.
Tomorrow Is New Year’s Day by Aram Kim
Mina is determined that her classmates understand Seollal, the Korean Lunar New Year, so she arrives at school ready to explain it properly. She wears her hanbok, demonstrates how to perform sebae and helps the class make tteokguk, sharing both food and custom. At home, her younger brother’s bad mood adds a quieter thread to the celebrations. A glossary with pronunciation guidance supports the Korean terms used throughout in this highly engaging and charming story for 4–8 year olds.
The Lucky Red Envelope: A Lift-the-flap Chinese New Year Celebration by Vikki Zhang
Yue and her family prepare for Lunar New Year with cleaning, decorations and reunion meals, moving through the festival day by day to the Lantern Festival finale. Fireworks, lion and dragon dances and ancestor offerings sit alongside details about new clothes and the giving of red envelopes. Each spread in this stunning illustrated guide for 3–7 year olds includes captions and search prompts, supported by 144 lift-the-flap elements that add extra facts and cultural context. Highly recommended for KS1 and KS2.
White Fox by Chen Jiatong, illustrated by Viola Wang
After hunters kill his parents, Dilah is left with a moonstone and a rumour of treasure that can turn animals into humans. Carrying the stone, he leaves his Arctic home and soon realises other foxes are tracking him. His journey takes him across frozen terrain and into unfamiliar territory, where he dodges predators, avoids people and forms uneasy alliances. Clues point towards the treasure, but the search ends on a cliffhanger in this outstanding conservation tinged fantasy story for 9–12 year olds. Read our review of the sequel, White Fox in the Forest.
Big Red Dragon by Jane Newberry, illustrated by Carolina Rabei
Big Red Dragon features 15 action rhymes that will engage younger children with activities and festivals such as Easter, Halloween, Diwali, Christmas, and Chinese New Year. Suitable for home, playgroup, or nursery, it promotes language development through interactive poems, beautiful bright illustrations, and clear instructions for parents and carers, complementing Jane Newberry’s previous collection, Big Green Crocodile. It is highly recommended for nursery and EYFS libraries and for reading at home to very young children.
Little Glow by Katie Sahota and Harry Woodgate
This charming and heartwarming story follows a shy ‘little glow’ that spreads positivity and excitement and purpose through many different lands, cultures and life events. With enchanting illustrations, the rhyming verse introduces younger readers to and links Chinese New Year, Ramadan, birthday celebrations, Diwali, Halloween, the 5th of November, Hanukkah and Christmas. An indispensable picture book that will be useful for any celebration topic in EYFS, Little Glow has the sparkle of a modern classic.
Welcoming the Lunar New Year by Lara Lee and Natelle Quek
When Ren and his family get ready for Lunar New Year, they clean the house, cook special food and repair a spectacular dragon costume for the parade. Moving between local shops, neighbours share how they mark the festival in Indonesia, China and Vietnam. Different foods and customs sit side by side, with a strong sense of community throughout. Wonderful, vibrant illustrations show the preparations and celebrations – making this a great introduction to Lunar New Year for 4–7 year olds. Highly recommended.
Guardians of the New Moon: The Year of the Tiger by Eric Huang, illustrated by Phùng Nguyên Quang
Ming and Miaow are sent down from the Heavenly Palace to find Biao, a tiger who has gone missing just as the Lunar New Year begins. Balance depends on her return, but Biao is focused on saving her dying forest and does not want help. As the pressure builds, the Guardians must work together to protect her home and keep the Year of the Tiger on track. This immersive adventure story for 6–9 year olds, part of a popular first chapter book series, draws on mythology while keeping readers grounded in teamwork and environmental awareness. Highly recommended for LKS2.
The Year of the Rat by Grace Lin
Change arrives with the New Year for Pacy, whose celebrations are quickly overshadowed when her best friend moves away. A new classmate from Taiwan joins her school, and assumptions from others leave Pacy questioning where she fits. Alongside family stories and folklore shared at home, she turns her attention to a school talent show and begins to think seriously about writing and drawing. Grace Lin includes her own line illustrations throughout in this highly engaging story – part of a popular series – that’s perfect for less confident 9–12 year olds.
Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah
The unforgettable story of a young Chinese girl’s struggle to find acceptance within her own family and her survival amongst siblings and parents who think she represents bad luck. She finds writing a form of release. Based on the author’s own life.
All About Lunar New Year: Things to Make and Do by Kevin Tsang, illustrated by Linh Nguyen
Vibrant and engaging. But this isn’t just a fable, myth and zodiac sign story book. There are well thought-out and constructed activities, and recipes for children, including how to construct magic lanterns and masks, and a series of traditional recipes. The Chinese Walnut cookies look divine! Highly recommended for 8-12 year olds.
The Kite Rider by Geraldine McCaughrean
Set in 13th-century China after the Mongol invasion, Haoyou’s life changes when his father dies during a sea voyage, sent aloft on a kite to test the wind. With his family left in debt to Great-uncle Bo, Haoyou runs away and joins the Jade Circus, where he becomes a kite rider. As the troupe travels with the aim of performing for Kublai Khan, Haoyou faces danger, divided loyalties and the cost of defying authority. A mesmerising and beautifully written modern classic for 11+ year olds.
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
Living in the shadow of Fruitless Mountain, Minli grows up on her father’s stories and her family’s hard work. When she spends their last coin on a goldfish believed to bring good fortune, she sets off to find the Old Man of the Moon and change her family’s fate. Along the way she travels with a dragon who cannot fly, meeting figures drawn from Chinese folklore as embedded tales echo her own journey. A stunning story for 8–12 year olds.
Lunar Love by Lauren Kung Jessen
Set in Los Angeles, this novel centres on Olivia Huang Christenson as she prepares to inherit her grandmother’s Chinese zodiac matchmaking business. A new dating app that rebrands the zodiac as “animal attraction” threatens her plans, and its creator, Bennett O’Brien, becomes both rival and reluctant partner. They agree to find matches for each other, with a rule that whoever falls in love first loses. Family expectations, grief and mixed-race identity shape the outcome. It’s a read-in-one-sitting guilty pleasure Lunar New Year romcom suitable for older teens.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu is growing up in 1950s San Francisco’s Chinatown, where family expectations and political suspicion shape daily life. When she meets Kathleen Miller, their connection draws Lily to the Telegraph Club, a lesbian bar that offers both freedom and risk. As McCarthyism intensifies and her father faces the threat of deportation, Lily navigates school, secrecy and first love, with her fascination for rockets and space threaded through her search for identity. A thought-provoking, challenging and uplifting read for 14+ year olds.
Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang and Leuyen Pham
Val dreads Valentine’s Day, convinced her family is cursed when it comes to love. As Lunar New Year approaches, she meets two lion dancers and sets herself a deadline to find a boyfriend before the next February rolls around. School corridors, awkward dates and family gatherings frame her search, while a hidden backstory begins to surface. Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham link family myths, lion dance and romance in this outstanding YA graphic novel.
Daughter Of The Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan
Raised in secret on the moon, Xingyin grows up hidden with her mother, Chang’e, until her magic exposes them to the Celestial Emperor. Forced to flee to the Celestial Kingdom, she conceals her identity and trains in archery and magic in the Crown Prince’s court. Determined to free her mother from exile, Xingyin navigates palace intrigue, dangerous quests and a romance complicated by loyalty, ambition and the cost of challenging a ruler in this spellbinding fantasy epic for 16+ year olds.
Year of the Tiger by Alice Wong
Structured as a collage of essays, interviews, photographs and commissioned artwork, this poignant memoir draws on Alice Wong’s work as a disabled Asian American activist and founder of the Disability Visibility Project. Wong writes about access, care and power, the pandemic and barriers to healthcare. The book includes a conversation with her mother about Lunar New Year, practical guidance on interviewing and short pieces that document community-building and resistance to ableism. It’s a fascinating and highly accessible read for sixth-formers.
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Lunar New Year and Chinese New Year resources for teachers
- The BBC School Radio Let’s Move teacher notes PDF (Lunar / Chinese New Year) sets out a two-session KS1 dance unit with clear guidance for leading movement activities, organising the class, and reviewing the work.
- The Oak National Academy KS2 lesson (Food for special occasions) includes Chinese New Year references in quiz and teaching points, which works well as a quick starter or context link within a wider sequence on celebrations and food.
- The British Council primary pack (Year of the Dragon) provides background on the festival plus classroom activities designed for UK primary schools.
- The British Museum schools hub for ages 7 to 11 supports teaching about world cultures through objects, with teacher and pupil materials you can adapt for Lunar New Year contexts.
- The Horniman Museum and Gardens Chinese New Year workshop sets out learning objectives and session content for KS1, including symbolism and customs.
- Confucius Institute for Scotland’s Schools Chinese New Year resources collate classroom-ready materials, including zodiac language learning and cultural explanations.
- Cardiff Confucius Institute resources include Chinese New Year classroom activities such as lantern-making, paper-cutting, zodiac learning and storytelling.
- UCL IOE Confucius Institute for Schools KS3 worksheet offers a simple secondary-friendly classroom resource you can slot into language or culture lessons.
- Teachwire’s Chinese New Year classroom round-up pulls together KS1 and KS2 activities and downloadable resources in one place, with ideas that work well for short sequences.
- National Maritime Museum Lunar New Year programme can support enrichment and cross-curricular work, with themed talks and cultural context you can use to frame learning.
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