Mr. Chow’s Night Market. By Emily Sun Li. Illustrated by Yu Ting Cheng. Penguin Workshop. $19.99.
It is difficult to convey just how clever the many clevernesses are in Mr. Chow’s Night Market. You have to see them to believe them – which is the point, or part of it. Emily Sun Li beautifully designs a story that rests on the notion of “day people” vs. “night people” and only at the end turns out to rest as well on a fascinating real-world element of life in Taiwan. Yu Ting Cheng delightfully illustrates the narrative in a way that not only brings the basic story to life but also enhances it by expanding characters and character traits to which the author never refers but that, once seen, appear absolutely integral to the book and indicate that the whole thing would be a significantly lesser experience without them. The result is a truly outstanding collaboration and a tale that carries surprises far from its underlying, fairly mundane day-vs.-night underpinning – right to a final page revealing that even the characters’ names are carefully created to become an expanded element of enjoyment.
It all starts with Mr. Chow – whose name, it is revealed at the back of the book, derives from the Mandarin Chinese word for “supermarket.” He runs a store called “Trader Chow’s,” an amusing play on “Trader Joe’s” in addition to an apt designation in and of itself. Being a night owl, Mr. Chow has to drag himself to work every morning, and the first part of the book shows him struggling to manage the expected and necessary elements of shopkeeping, getting into tiredness-related trouble and largely ignoring his grandchildren, who really want to help him. The middle section of the book has Mr. Chow talking with his neighbors (all of whose names also derive from suitable Mandarin Chinese words) about his difficulty getting going in the morning and his troubles keeping the supermarket running smoothly. The selection of neighbors is one of the many carefully crafted and clever elements of Mr. Chow’s Night Market: they are a baker who works super-early, a nurse whose services may be needed anytime during the day or night, and a movie-theater usher whose job requires availability whenever showings of films occur.
Clearly Mr. Chow can learn a lesson from these variously time-sensitive people and jobs; and he does, beginning a frenzy of nighttime activity – when he is at his best – that transforms his supermarket into one that will open after dark. And now his grandchildren, always eager to help, are welcome to do so – and they do, cementing the neighborhood-and-family focus of the entire book.
Changes complete – including the setup of food stalls outside the main supermarket building – Mr. Chow and his grandchildren wait to see what will happen when people discover the “night market.” They do not have to wait long: a trickle of curiosity turns into a river and, soon enough, “an ocean of children and families,” as the supermarket and its surrounding area become a gathering place for the entire community – not only a place to buy things but also a nighttime communal experience to be enjoyed by everyone.
One of the many delights of the book is the author’s end note explaining the foundation of the story: a real “first night market in Taiwan” that dates to 1899, still operates today, and is now just one of many such establishments. But that is not all: real Taiwanese night markets do not feature adorably sleepy pomelos, dozing turnips, happy and bright-eyed crabs, or the other characters scattered about Mr. Chow’s Night Market and lending every page, every bit of verbiage, an element of delight and gentle fantasy. Indeed, the only two-page spread in the book with no words is one of its highlights: early on, Mr. Chow’s tiredness and attempts to get everything done himself while struggling to stay alert result in a tremendously chaotic and very funny mess that is exceptionally amusing in part because the fresh produce, the prepared snacks, the shopping carts, the food containers, even the overhead lightbulb are drawn with big eyes and expressive faces that clearly reflect the alarm they all feel as Mr. Chow’s unfortunate experience reverberates throughout the store. The detail of the illustrations, which were done with pencil and paper as well as software, is simply delightful: even the anthropomorphically personified sun and moon, unsurprising background characters in books such as this one, have wonderfully rendered, individualized personas that contribute to the overall atmosphere. Mr. Chow’s Night Market succeeds on all levels: story, illustrations, real-world tie-ins, and enough detail both in narrative and in pictures so that children will discover new forms of enjoyment on every reading of the book, including the many re-readings it will deservedly receive.
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