Review Excerpt:

Chico writer/photographer's delicious new children's book features old Beijing

Time was when Chico's Doug Keister loped around the country photographing buildings for his books on Victorian or Storybook styles.

But in recent years, as he has honed his writerly voice (his blog is at www.redroom.com/blog/douglas-r-keister), his photographic subjects have become impressively eclectic — from classic travel trailers to cemetery symbolism and now to the hutongs, the older neighborhoods of Beijing.