宝宝自己读 -- 老鼠搬家 (Little Mouse's Moving -The Pleasant Goat and The Big Big Wolf)

We brought 宝宝自己读 -- 老鼠搬家 (Little Mouse's Moving -The Pleasant Goat and The Big Big Wolf) home from China a year ago, and we're realizing that it's the best children's book we have. We desperately wish we had more of these books. This book is fantastic, and I'm guessing that the entire series of 宝宝自己读 books are great.

They're great because the stories are made from all the most basic characters. The stories are made to specially introduce characters as you go throughout the books. The characters do not have pin yin, but when new characters are introduced there is pin yin. This really helps our kids learn the characters, and when they are learning or relearning new characters the pin yin helps them out a lot. See pictures below to understand what I mean.

The pictures are interesting, the story is fun, the sentences are simple, and new words are introduced with pin yin.

Shows how this book is based off commonly used characters

Game and review

Other books in the 宝宝自己读 series

Again, we really think it's a great book, and it looks like the whole series is great. I was able to find the series from Chinese Publishers and imported some to my own online store. So here is the link to my store if you want to take a look at the series or other chinese books:
www.sharonsdynasty.com




Our rating = A+

I spy in Chinese （视觉大发现 -- 奇趣谜）

The I-spy series is a classic children's book in the US. As kids get to be around 3-5 years old and get longer attention spans, they often love studying fun, complicated pictures to find particular objects. I was happy when my wife brought this Chinese version of I spy back from China（视觉大发现 -- 奇趣谜）. 

This book is great, just like the English versions, but I will warn you that you probably must be a parent fluent in Chinese, with very good reading skills, to read this with your kids. My Chinese is not good enough to read to my kids what they are supposed to be looking for since I don't know many of the characters. I used to know about 3000 characters, and now I probably only know around 1000, and it seemed like half the time I wouldn't be able to read correctly what we are supposed to be looking for. It kind of takes the fun out of it.

If you can read Chinese like a pro, however, $5 from Amazon with prime shipping is a great deal and you will have fun with your kids.

Looks like the only library that has it is in Shanghai

http://www.worldcat.org/title/i-spy-shi-jue-da-fa-xian-qi-qu-tan/oclc/879903692&referer=brief_results

You can buy it on Amazon here!



Our rating -- B (must have advanced Chinese reading skills to read with kids)

鸟儿在歌唱：学会珍爱生命 (The bird is singing: learning to treasure life)

I found another translation of e a book in the the frog picture book series by Max Velthuijis on Amazon. It's called 鸟儿在歌唱：学会珍爱生命 (The bird is singing: learning to treasure life). It was also only $3 with prime shipping. For such a cheap price, free shipping, and good little Chinese picture books it really is a no brainer to buy them. The book we're talking about today is called . I reviewed another frog book earlier called 特别的日子:学会热爱生活 Special day: learn to love life.

The book is 25 pages and is about the story of how the frog and his friends deal with finding a bird on the ground. At first, they think the bird is sick, but eventually they realize that it's dead. Some are not sure what that means. They decide to bury it, so they go dig a hole. They have some somber and serious moments afterwards as they think about what happened. Then, they start playing again, and they realize how precious life is. At the end of the book, they see another black bird in the trees, singing.

I like these books because the story flows pretty quickly and keeps my kids entertained. The words are usually pretty simple, but there are some more advanced characters in there with some pretty imagery. There is pinyin, however, so it's easy to read along regardless.

Death is an interesting subject, especially for little kids. I think this book approaches it in a pretty good, matter of fact way. If talking about death at all with your kids scares you, be warned. However, I think it's a good teaching and bonding moment to read a story like this with your kids, even if you don't go into too much details about what it means to die.

Some pictures of the book:

Chinese children's book: 鸟儿在歌唱：学会珍爱生命 (The bird is singing: learning to treasure life)

Again, we highly recommend these books both because the pictures are good, the stories are good, and the price is absolutely right.

我好担心 (Wemberly Worried)

We checked out a great book from the library this week called  我好担心 (Wemberly Worried). I wish we had lots of Chinese books like this. I've seen my 4 year old looking at it all by himself several times, which tells me that it catches his interest.

It's a classic English book, and I'll refer you to Amazon.com to read the 5 star reviews.



It's about a mouse that worries a lot. She worries that snakes will come out of her radiator, that a tree will fall on her house, that things are going to come out of the cracks in the walls. Reading it with our kids it all seemed so relevant to them. They thought it was fun and silly but also novel and interesting. I pointed to a crack on our roof and I could tell the wheels in their heads were spinning.

Anyways, the book is a bit long, and I'd say you should plan on your kids being at least 4 years old to read it. I think it has a lot of re-read value and is one your kids will be interested in reading many times over and over again.

 我好担心 (Wemberly Worried)

I think it's well translated, and one thing I like about it is that there is no pin yin. I think it's good to have books with pin yin, but it's also nice to not have pin yin so your kids really focus on the characters. It's also a bit repetitive, which I think really helps with learning the characters. Worried in Chinese is  担心, and our son is getting really good at reading that word :-)

I did find a place on Amazon that carries this book!  :

我好担心 (Wemberly Worried)

It seems kinda sketchy... but Amazon always guarantees everything so I'm sure they would give you a refund if it didn't come or was messed up.

Or find it at a library near you:

http://www.worldcat.org/title/wo-hao-dan-xin/oclc/460057646&referer=brief_results


Some other Chinese websites that have it:

http://www.mmbbclub.com/product_2237.html
http://www.wjlib.com:8088/opac3/book/3276789617?globalSearchWay=subject

谁摘了我的花儿 (Who Picked my flower) -- a cute baby Chinese book

About a year ago, I found a really cute Chinese children's book in a local Chinese Book shop here in Houston. It was really cheap; I think I only paid about 2 dollars for it. We've read it at least 10 times, and now our youngest (under age 2) is old enough to really enjoy it.

It's called 谁摘了我的花儿 (Who Picked my flower)

As you can see from the screenshots, it's a very simple book where you look for the hidden object. Every page is a different type of sentence -- Who picked my flower, where's my button, etc.

谁摘了我的花儿 (Who Picked my flower) -- a cute baby Chinese book

毛毛虫藏在哪里? Where is the caterpillar hiding?

I found a place on Amazon that sells this book! $10  :

谁摘了我的花儿 (Who Picked my flower)

It seems kinda like a sketchy vendor and it ships from China, ... but Amazon always guarantees everything so I'm sure they would give you a refund if it didn't come or was messed up.

Right now, it looks like the only library it's available in is in Singapore:

http://www.worldcat.org/title/shui-zhai-le-wo-de-hua-er/oclc/606749289&referer=brief_results



Here are Chinese websites you can buy it from:

http://product.dangdang.com/20435719.html#ddclick?act=click&pos=20435719_0_0_q&cat=&key=%CB%AD%D5%AA%C1%CB%CE%D2%B5%C4%BB%A8%B6%F9&qinfo=1_1_60&pinfo=&minfo=&ninfo=&custid=&permid=20150215062657977221109172843912752&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fproduct.dangdang.com%2F20435719.html&rcount=&type=&t=1423952861000&ver=A

http://www.egou.com/product/01_1421043_3.html

http://baike.baidu.com/view/7738978.htm

特别的日子:学会热爱生活 Special day: learn to love life

Special day: learn to love life is a picture book by Max Velthuijis. Max is from the Netherlands and has written lots of famous children's books. One of them is the Frog series, a series of books about a frog. I was amazed to see that Amazon had some of the Chinese versions for sale for very cheap!

This one only costs $2.99 and has prime shipping. It was temporalily out of stock when we ordered it, and it took around a month to get here, but it came! It's a soft cover book, about 20 pages. There is pin yin under all the characters, and it's a nice story about a frog whose friends tell him it's a special day, but he can't figure out why it's a special day. In the end his friends throw him a surprise party.

特别的日子:学会热爱生活 Special day: learn to love life

Anyways, the amazing convenience of Amazon together with a cheap price made this a no brainer for us to buy. Now that our 4 year old is getting better with characters and pin yin, he's starting to be able to read this book by himself. Its very satisfying for him and us.

兔子和乌龟 (tortoise and the hare) Chinese Children's book

This book is the Chinese rendition of the classic story about the tortoise and the hare. It is similar to 小猴子, 追呀追, which we previously reviewed. It's from the same publisher, and they are both great books. The other story is more original, which we like, but it's also fun to have the classic stories like this one in Chinese. They are both great books that parents and kids will love reading.

Looking online, it's a shame this book is not easier to find. I'm not sure where in China my wife bought it. Here it is on amazon.cn

If anyone can find it in other places, please let me know! And a few screenshots.

兔子和乌龟 (tortoise and the hare) 

Find it at a library near you (so far only in singapore or Australia)

http://www.worldcat.org/title/tu-zi-yu-wu-gui/oclc/829173868&referer=brief_results


Actually... I did find it on Amazon for an exorbetan price...


兔子和乌龟 (tortoise and the hare)

Anyways, if you can find it, it's a good book.

Our Grade = A

Chinese 101 in cartoons (for shopping) -- 漫画汉语101句 （购物篇）

This is a really weird book. I honestly don't get what the cartoons are for. Cartoons make stuff fun for little kids, but the content here is stuff that grown ups would use. I got this book because I thought my kids who are learning Chinese would have fun reading the cartoons, but sadly it turns out the cartoons are only in pin yin. I don't see the utility in having my kids read pin yin without and Chinese characters, and I don't think they would even like that. They like to see the characters. Since they can't do that with the cartoons, the cartoons become useless.

There are Chinese characters of the conversation above the cartoons in text format, but that's not fun to read. It would be helpful for adults, but the cartoons make it so cumbersome that it doesn't seem like a good reference for an adult actually trying to study Chinese in preparation for a trip to China.

Thus, this book seems to miss the mark for both kids and adults. Nevertheless, it would not be a totally useless tool for adults to use to study Chinese. The cartoons might add some variety and entertainment to studying, even if they are unnecessary and distracting.

Chinese 101 in cartoons

Even though I didn't give this book the best review, you might think it's worth trying out. If so, purchase it at Amazon with the following link:

New Chinese For Children 新儿童汉语

This is another book that a publisher sent me in promise of a review. I was really excited for this book, but ultimately ended up being very disappointed because it wasn't what I expected. HOWEVER, I must preface that this book might be a great option if your kids don't speak any Chinese at all and are a bit older (probably at least 6).

The book doesn't assume any knowledge of Chinese, and just jumps in with very basic words. There is no pronunciation guide, but there is a CD of MP3 files that walks you through the book. I'm not sure how effective that would really be, I guess a parent would have to walk the kid through it, and the kid would probably have to be pretty confident reading English. The pictures are fun, and there's some activities in the book to keep kids occupied, like filling in the blank, songs, and other questions.

However, my biggest complaint and the reason why I'm not sure this book is worth it is that the book is almost entirely pin yin. It hardly emphasizes characters at all. On one hand, I can appreciate that, and I understand that it's much easier to learn how to speak with pin yin and not with characters. That's how I learned to speak (this is the husband writing this). On the other hand, this book is way too extreme in hardly including any Chinese characters. In the very least, I think they should be placed there anyway, even if the pin yin is emphasized. Kids need to see the characters and start to get familiar with them, and this book doesn't do that at all. Kids also need to start writing a little bit, and kids think writing characters is fun.

I'm not sure how fair my evaluation is, since I'm not the target audience (my kids already speak Chinese), but I don't think this is the book I would seek out if my kids didn't speak Chinese and I wanted them to learn.

Our rating = C

New Chinese For Children

On the other hand, this book is available from Amazon with prime shipping... which makes it very convenient to buy and check it out. Buy it here:

The Big Spider 大蜘蛛 (My First Chinese Storybooks Series)

We've had this book for about six months now, and I've been meaning to get a review up here sooner. I promised the publisher I would write one, and we got extremely busy and haven't gotten around to it.

It's a fun book, and I would give it a great rating, but the story is a bit weird. It's about a boy who wants to play in his sister's room and play with her stuff, and the sister keeps lying to him about there being a spider in her room and in her stuff. This lie scares him away and he doesn't mess with her stuff. One day, there really is a spider, and the sister gets scared. She calls for her little brother and he comes in and saves the day, taking the spider outside. Then, brother and sister get along happily ever after.

The story never really resolves that it was wrong to lie, and because of this it's a book that I really don't like to read with my kids. It's not terrible, and if you read between the lines you sort of understand that the sister shouldn't have lied, but it's not clear, and that really annoys me. On the other hand, the pictures are fun, and the English and Chinese are both easy to read. I like that my son can read most of the Chinese by himself. I like that it's a real story and not just silly Chinese history or poems. I wish there were more Chinese books like this, but I wish the morals were better in this book as well.

Our rating is thus a C+

The Big Spider 大蜘蛛 (My First Chinese Storybooks Series)

Buy it on Amazon here:

胖国王 (The fat king) -- Chinese children's book

胖国王

胖国王 is another book that we really like. I think we found it at a used book store a few years ago. It's in traditional characters. It's about a king who got really fat and felt bad because he was so unhealthy. Then he went on a diet and everyone helped him eat better and exercise by putting his bed up a huge flight of stairs. It's cute, a fun story, educational, and overall a good read.

I found a youtube video that goes through the book to give you all a sample.



I think the real book is better than watching the video, so buy it or check it out if you get a chance!

This book is actually at several US libraries, including Houston and San Francisco. There might be one at a location near you, check it out!

http://www.worldcat.org/title/pang-guo-wang/oclc/43679670


Here it is on amazon.cn

http://www.amazon.cn/%E8%83%96%E5%9B%BD%E7%8E%8B%E7%98%A6%E7%9A%87%E5%90%8E-%E5%BC%A0%E8%93%AC%E6%B4%81/dp/product-description/B0011CUSEE


Haven't found it from a US based shipper. Let me know if you do!

小猴子, 追呀追 -- Great Chinese Children's Book

 小猴子追呀追 is one of the best Chinese Children's books we've ever seen!

小猴子追呀追 -- cute illustrations and fun text

小猴子追呀追 (Little monkey chase) is one of the best Chinese children's books we have ever seen. We picked it up in China. It's one of the only hard books we've ever seen in China. China is full of books that are flimsy paperback books that break easily and are illustrated in a busy, confusing way. This was one of the only books constructed with card board that is built to last more than a few weeks. It's not quite as thick as the nice board books in America, but it's close.

The story is cute. It's about a monkey who explores around the jungle, and you as the reader act like the mom chasing him around. The book prompts you to make noises imitating the different animal sounds and movements. Our kids really like reading it with us! It's fun.

Sadly, we can't find anywhere to buy it outside of China. But if you are ever in China... Look for it!

It's also in a library in Singapore and Australia:

http://www.worldcat.org/title/xiao-hou-zi-zhui-ya-zhui/oclc/829177736

And here are several links to buy it in China

http://item.jd.com/1063300882.html
http://product.suning.com/103079625.html

Here's the amazon.cn link

http://www.amazon.cn/%E5%A6%88%E5%A6%88%E5%AE%9D%E5%AE%9D%E8%86%9D%E4%B8%8A%E6%80%80%E4%B8%AD%E4%BA%B2%E5%AD%90%E4%BA%A4%E6%B5%81%E5%9B%BE%E7%94%BB%E4%B9%A6-%E5%B0%8F%E7%8C%B4%E5%AD%90-%E8%BF%BD%E5%91%80%E8%BF%BD/dp/B009NAJYVE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401581126&sr=8-1&keywords=%E5%B0%8F%E7%8C%B4%E5%AD%90%2C+%E8%BF%BD%E5%91%80%E8%BF%BD


Let me know if you find US based seller!