Happy Holidays from Max the Monkey

Everyone's heard of the Monkey King right? 

The Journey to the West has inspired countless adaptations across the centuries. As legend has it, Wu Cheng'en wrote this Chinese novel during the 16th century's Ming dynasty. Later the story became renowned as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. The others are Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Dream of the Red Chamber.

Modern versions of Journey to the West include the popular manga and anime Dragon Ball Z, created by Japan's prolific comics artist Akira Toriyama in 1984.  As a little child, Goku starts off with a nice brown tail... but then it gets cut off! Ouch! A nice cartoon version of a boy's timeless rite of passage into adulthood, wouldn't you say? As a small consolation, at least in the future Goku gains a power that would put Clairol and many hairdressers out of business - our spiky headed hero enjoys free and instant hair coloring when he goes Super Saiyan.

In 2008, Hollywood was inspired. Lion's Gate got the bug with its Hong Kong flavored flick The Forbidden Kingdom. Here martial arts maven Jet Li transforms into old furry face himself to square off against the drunken master Jackie Chan. It's sort of the Asian cinematic equivalent of the Street Fighter IV but with better actors than Kylie Minogue and Jean Claude Van Damme.

In 2013 Kung Fu Hustle's Stephen Chow directed (but not starred) in a film aptly title Journey to the West. Therein the Buddhist hero undertakes the famed adventure by protecting a town from demons, falling in love with another fetching fighter, and searching for the fabled Mon-king.

Naturally, given the homegrown subject matter, this movie earned the most of any film in  China in its first day (beating the Transformers: Dark of the Moon only to be bested by the Transformer's even more boffo sequel Age of Extinction in 2014). Soon Chow's Journey became the highest grossing Chinese-language motion picture ever. Poor Wu Cheng'en. If he only had Walt Disney's lawyers, then he'd still be earning royalties.

Our first copy hot off the presses, nicely couched in the heavens.

Now what room in the world is left to say or show anything about the mythic Monkey King?

Well, we knew the upcoming turn of the calendar into 2016 (February 8th to be exact) would herald The Year of the Monkey.

What better way to commemorate this tradition (which has been celebrated for millennia) than to create a brand new character?

Viola!

Max is the son of the legendary Monkey King and Monkey Queen!

Sure this tyke has a lot to live up to (don't we all)...but even the sky is the limit for Max! But like kids everywhere, Max is learning how to learn...as well as squeezing in as much fun as possible!

Amazingly illustrated by the DreamWorks animator Kenji Ono, The Year of the Monkey will inspire readers to fly high! We look forward to sharing this fabulous new 11th adventure in our series Tales from the Chinese Zodiac in the coming year.

Happy Year of the Sheep

February 19th is the start of the Chinese New Year...and we're ready to celebrate The Year of the Sheep!

We've created original adventures in our annual series Tales from the Chinese Zodiac for a decade. Now the latest yarn centers on Sydney - this lamb redefines (in very positive ways) what it means to be sheepish!

Already we have shared this energetic story with dozens of schools, libraries, and cultural associations...and have seen kids go baaa-baaa-bonkers with enthusiasm :)

Artist Alina Chau illustrated a brand new world for Sydney and our readers to explore - full of color, humor, and the beauty of nature. Well known for her expert use of watercolors, Alina imbues her illustrations with intimate and impressionistic detail. Plus Alina will present the March 1st storytime at Books, Inc. in Burlingame, CA.

Meanwhile author Oliver Chin is reading at many other locales. See our events calendar for a venue near you.

In addition, we are translating Tales from the Chinese Zodiac into Chinese, due to regular requests from teachers and parents from Chinese immersion classes. Now you can download free PDFs that have either the simplified and traditional Chinese translations for The Year of the Sheep and prior Tales.

May 2015 be full of health, wealth, and prosperity for you, your family, and your community.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Happy Chinese New Year - 2014 is The Year of the Horse!

We ring in the lunar new year with the 9th adventure in our Tales from the Chinese Zodiac series -  The Year of the Horse!

9 years already? Boy, time flies when you're having fun.

That we've certainly had in abundance during the past decade. Yet when we started, we knew we'd have a lot of ground to cover too. Think about it...when was the last time you've willingly embarked on a 12 year project where you had to make a product every year?

You parents out there know what we're talking about, when I say that having a child becomes much more than a 12 year project. But then would you want to have another baby the next year, and so on, and so on?

Well, without getting too philosophical about it (or straying into the familially fraught territory of TLC's reality TV show 19 Kids and Counting), let's just say we embarked willingly and with brio.

One of our goals was to publish fresh, meaningful stories about Asian American themes and characters. So this hitting upon concept was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. I mean no one had ever published a series of stories on each of the Chinese zodiac animals before in English (only later did we learn that a Chinese publisher had done so in Asia, but the tales were much different).

But let's get back to FUN.

2014's heroine is Hannah the Horse. She exemplifies the positive can-do attitude of kids who want to make their mark in the world and enjoy their journey at the same time.

Artist Jennifer Wood notches her 3rd straight hit (following Dragon and Snake) and displays her personal predilection for horses with vibrant scenes of Hannah and her pal Tom energetically romping through colorful vistas. These friends are simply joyful, just like any kids at play.

January 31, 2014 was the first day but the celebrations will kick into higher gears in the coming weeks. Jennifer presented at Kidspace Children's Museum in Pasadena today, and will read at Vroman's Bookstore on 2/8.

Meanwhile author Oliver Chin visits Southern California this week as well. He participates in the Bowers Museum's festival in Santa Ana tomorrow on 2/2 (quite a Super Sunday). Then he'll travel to many schools and libraries across Los Angeles - check out our event calendar.

In a way, the creators are emulating Hannah's trek to share the fruits of artistic creativity, one of which is the common experience of fun.www.immedium.com/products/yearofhorse.htmlwww.immedium.com/products/yearofhorse.htmlwww.immedium.com/products/yearofhorse.html

The Year of the Snake: Tales from the Chinese Zodiac

Back during the era of the Garden of Eden, snakes didn't have Reputation.com to manage their public profile. On that fateful day when Eve ate a simple apple, the street cred of snakes took a big hit and it has never really recovered since then.

From then on, every little snakelet has had to deal with bad PR that would tax the abilities of even the most well-funded Washington lobbyist to spin.

And were not even mentioning the negative Q ratings of G.I. Joe's nemesis Serpentor or of the Lego Ninjago's enemies the Serpentine (Hypnobrai, Fangpyre, Venomari, Constrictai, Anacondrai - boy that is a mouthful - who thinks of these names?!).

Well the new year is as good a time as any to reverse millenia of stereotyping. February 10, 2013 is the start of The Year of the Snake. Therefore, we are proud to introduce the 8th in our annual children's picture book series Tales from the Chinese Zodiac.

We personally cannot think of a better animal to carry the banner than our heroine Suzie. This gal has a lot of fire in her belly and won't take put downs lying down! Suzie and her bff Lily are soon joined at the hip. Together they set out to defrost the others' hoary preconceptions of snakes.

Jennifer Wood (www.artofjwood.com), the artist of 2012's uber popular The Year of the Dragon, has done a bang up job of making Suzie a contemporary 21st century reptile. No bashful skulking in shadows. No boring greens in Suzie's wardrobe, no sirree Bob. She is bright-eyed and bushy tailed. She's is ready to shake, rattle, and roll. She takes the world on by the horns.

Spoiler Alert: Suzie proves, once and for all, people born in The Year of the Snake have no reason to be ashamed. They are stellar characters and have great qualities. They can walk tall and proud and accomplish fantastic things!

Ring in 2010 & The Year of the Tiger at Kepler's book store

A day should be long enough for you to recover from imbibing warm spirits, gawking at Dick Clark, and watching the ball drop. Then you'll be ready for a good yarn on Sunday morning. Celebrate the baby new year with a story time of The Year of the Tiger with author Oliver Chin.

Oliver will read the 5th adventure in the popular Tales from the Chinese Zodiac on Sunday, January 3rd at 11:30 am at:

Kepler's
1010 El Camino Real Blvd.
Menlo Park, CA 94025
650-324-4321
www.keplers.com

Naturally there will be free coloring pages (courtesy of new series artist Justin Roth) for a fun art activity following the story time.

This kicks off another season of visits to schools, libraries, museums, and associations. Kids of all ages will enjoy getting to know our new hero Teddy the Tiger and his human friend Su.