This story of love is actually a true story based on the author's (Lenore Look) relationship with her grandmother. This book shows the love between a grandmother and granddaughter. The grandmother is living in Seattle with the rest of the family, and cannot speak English. The only job she can find is cracking crabs, and it is hard work with little pay.
Katie (actually Lenore in real life) thinks her grandma, her Gnin Gnin, is the most wonderful person ever. She wants to be just like her, and cook just like her! So Gnin Gnin takes her to work one day; and Katie learns how hard it is. She cannot crack a crab, and gets tired of standing up after only a few hours. She watches how hard her Gnin Gnin works, and notices how tired she is at the end of the day.
Her grandmother encourages Katie that she can be anything she wants here in America. Any of her dreams are possible. The book ends with a bit of advice from Gnin Gnin describing her crab chong soup, "made with love as strong as ginger and dreams as thick as black-bean paste" (Look, 1999, last page).
This is a very sweet book about love and sacrifices. It is a beautiful book for young children to read, the illustrations by Stephen T. Johnson are done in pastel watercolors, but the concepts might be hard for young children to understand. Older children can appreciate all the hard work the grandmother does to help survive in America.
Look, L. (1999). Love as Strong as Ginger. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.
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