Katie loves to show her grandma how to dress a Barbie...and GninGnin loves to show Katie how to make rice dumplings. More than anything, Katie longs to go with GninGnin to work, to crack a mountain of crabs alongside her at the crab cannery.
One day Katie gets her wish, but nothing is the way she'd imagined it. GninGnin swings a heavy mallet from sunup to sundown in a noisy, smelly room, earning barely enough for bus fare and a fish for dinner. That evening, when Katie eats the delicious meal that GninGnin has cooked -- "made with love as strong as ginger and dreams as thick as black-bean paste" -- she has a new understanding of her beloved grandma's hard life, and the sacrifices she's made to give her granddaughter a brighter future.
All the poignancy of Lenore Look's beautifully realized story -- based on her own childhood memories of her Chinese immigrant grandmother -- is captured in Caldecott Honor Medalist Stephen T. Johnson's sensitive, expressive pastels.

About The Author

Photo courtesy of the author

Lenore Look

Lenore Look is the author of Ruby Lu, Brave and True, an ALA Notable Book, as well as its sequels, Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything and Ruby Lu, Star of the Show. Her picture books include Love as Strong as Ginger, illustrated by Caldecott Honor artist Stephen T. Johnson; Henry’s First-Moon Birthday; and Uncle Peter’s Amazing Chinese Wedding, both illustrated by Yumi Heo. She lives in Hong Kong.

About The Illustrator

Photograph courtesy of the author

Stephen T. Johnson

Stephen T. Johnson is the creator of such well-known children’s books as My Little Red Toolbox, My Little Blue Robot, and Alphabet City, recipient of a Caldecott Honor, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year, and a Society of Illustrators Gold Medal. His artwork can be found in permanent and public collections including the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and the DeKalb Avenue Subway Station in Brooklyn, New York. Stephen is a professor at the University of Kansas, and he lives in Lawrence, Kansas.