"The Great Race" is a beautiful retelling of the Chinse zodiac story. In order to find a way to measure time, The Jade Emperor decides to have a race and the first twelve animals to cross the river will have a year named after them. This is also a story of how cats and rats came to be enemies. I like the simple, colorful, and bold illustrations in this book and I think they would appeal to students as well. I also like that each animal was given a character attribute which helped them cross the river. I think this would be a great book to celebrate Chinese New Year. ( )

This fable brings to life how the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac are chosen. The Jade emperor decides to find a solution to the problem that he feels there is no way to measure time. Therefore, he holds a race of animals and notifies them that the first 12 to cross the finish line will be named a year. As the animals participate in the race, some are trickers other her helpful in their adventure to win a year. The story ends with the humor of answering why cats hate rats, which is because the cat asks the rat to wake him to begin the race but the rat unsuccessful attempts to wake him. Therefore the cat ends up coming in thirteenth place. ( )

This was an adventurous story of how the Chinese calendar was made. This fun story showed the strengths of different animals. Despite the animals using each other to win the race everyone seemed to have a positive attitude about finishing the race no matter what place they came in. Everyone except the cat, who was supposed to be waken up by the rat so that they could finish the race together. Despite the rat's attempt to wake the sleeping cat, cat stayed sleep and rat left for the race finishing in 1st place. In the end cat finally woke up, saw that rat had finished and became very angry and chased him down. The last remarks explained why rats always run away from cats. I loved this story and the illustrations told the story all on its own. ( )

The Great Race is a cute little story bringing to life the folktale about the creation of the Chinese Zodiac.

For the longest time there was no way to keep track of the passing time. One day, the Emperor decided to hold a great race. He invited all the animals to join in. The first twelve to cross the river would be given the honour of having a year named after them.

I love myths, legends, and folktales. It's neat to see how useful information is encoded into stories. This story, simply told aloud, teaches kids (and adults) the sequence of the Chinese Zodiac, and provides a duel explanation of why the Zodiac consists of these animals, and also why cats and rats don't get along.

The artwork was… interesting. It's a bit too abstract for me. I prefer things to look a little more realistic. I read this with my cubs though, and the younger ones really liked the pictures. I'm guessing that art is geared towards the younger readers.

***Many thanks to Netgalley and Quarto Publishing for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. ( )

Nicely illustrated story of how the 12 years in the Chinese Zodiac got their animal names. The book is based on traditional legend (or at least one version of the legend.) The illustrations are colorful and pleasing. A good activity for children reading this would be to ask them what they can learn from each animal. ( )