Lion Dancers - Cai Tse - ★★★★

AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR: Cai Tse

GENRE: Middle-grade Graphic Novel.

PUBLICATION DATE: August 13, 2024

RATING: 4 stars.

In a Nutshell: A middle-grade graphic novel about two lion dancers who realise the value of team spirit. Excellent information on lion dancing. Great lessons on working as a team. Good characters. Straightforward story. Wonderful illustrations. Recommended.

Plot Preview:

Wei had always dreamt of becoming a champion lion dancer just like his dad. He enjoyed training as the ’lion head’, with his best friend Hung performing as the ‘lion tail.’ However, after Wei’s dad suddenly passed away, the friendship as well as the dream shattered.

Now, two years later, Wei is stuck in a rut of frustration. Though great in studies, he has no talent for any sport. When he discovers the existence of a junior lion dance training group nearby, he reignites his old passion. The only problem is that Hung is also part of this group. Now Wei and Hung need to overpower their animosity and learn to work together as a team.

Bookish Yays:

🐉 Everything to do with lion dancing! There’s a brief intro about lion dancing at the start. Every chapter begins with the name of one lion dance step, along with its interpretation. I didn’t even know there was so much technicality in lion dancing, or that there are lion dancing championships! All the info was so fascinating! I also loved knowing how many offices and shops ask for a lion dance performance at the start of the Lunar New Year.

🐉 Lion dancing might sound like it is mainly “dancing”, but the book reveals how it is a sport, and a strenuous one at that! It is not easy to position the body in those awkward stances and move in sync with your partner. There is also a coordination between the dancers and the musicians. It was amazing to see how the dancers pass on cues to each other when they can’t even see or speak to each other or the musicians.

🐉 One major conflict in the story is about the relative importance of the ‘head’ and the ‘tail’. I loved how beautifully the story brings out the equal importance of both positions. Such a nice way of telling kids that every role is important!

🐉 Anyone who is or wants to be a part of team sports will appreciate the depiction of team spirit in this book. The positive competitiveness among the players, the synchronisation across the entire team, the importance of trust, the necessity of regular training – all depict how teams ought to function. At the same time, not everything in the story is serious. The book also highlights how the team soon becomes a family, with a lot of funny quips and good-natured ribbing across members.

🐉 The ending is perfect. Though a middle-grade book, it doesn’t go into a ‘Protagonists Are Always Winners’ mode, choosing instead to stop at the point where the boys decide to work in unity and harmony for the upcoming championship. After all, life isn’t about winning but about giving your best every time. A good lesson for kids to learn.

🐉 The illustrations are perfect for the tone of the story. The colour palette works wonderfully to bring out the stunning costumes and the dance moves. My ARC didn’t have all colour pages, but based on the few sample coloured panels, I can tell that the final artwork is going to be stunning.

🐉 This is an OwnVoices work not just because of the author’s ethnic background but also because she is a lion dancer with the Chinese Youth League of Australia. The authenticity feels real because it IS real!

Bookish Mixed Bags:

☯ The story is mostly straightforward and guessable. However, it is aimed at middle-graders, so a simplified narrative is to be expected.

☯ While the book explores many themes such as parental death, grief, frustration, teamwork, competitions, peer pressure, familial pressure, loneliness, and so on, most of these are at a surface level. Only the themes directly connected to lion dancing are detailed intricately. There are also many direct and indirect references to Chinese culture and customs, but these are also somewhat vague except when about the sport.

☯ The conflict between Wei and Hung brings out many relevant points about the tussles of friendship, but it also feels a bit dragged, especially as we don’t even know the details of how they drifted apart except for a vague reason. I wish the reason for their clash had come out better.

Bookish Nays:

🏮 There are many missing details in the plot flow. How exactly did Wei’s father die? Who was that quirky captain of the lion dance team, and why was he so elusive? Also, why wasn’t he a performer with the senior team? How did Wei and Jun become such good friends despite being so opposite in nature? Even the characters’ ages aren’t clear, though we know that Hung and Wei are middle-schoolers. These could have been explained within a couple of panels, and they could have made the story smoother. As the focus is strictly on lion dancing, character development gets a bit affected.

🏮 There is absolutely no clue about where the story is set! The book is coming out in the USA, and the author is based in Australia, so it has to be either of these countries. But there is no indication of the location at all. We get vague place names that don’t correspond to reality, such as “Southern Phoenix” team or store signs written in Chinese. Most of the characters are of Asian origin. (All might be Chinese, but I can’t say for sure, as lion dancing isn’t exclusive to China.) Such basic details such as age or location might seem trivial, but they add much to our reading experience.

All in all, despite a few niggles about the lacunae in the plot flow, I enjoyed this book. It is so informative about lion dancing that I Googled a few videos on the dance form and saw the performance with more knowledgeable eyes.

Definitely recommended, to middle-graders as well as teens. This is a wonderful and culturally inclusive option, highlighting not just the value of team spirit but also an excellent dance-sport tradition that might not be familiar to Western readers.

My thanks to Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers for providing the DRC of “Lion Dancers” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.