As promised, here are our favorite books on trains. We'd love to hear about yours!
Huo Che Yao Kai Le (火车要开了) ISBN: 9787539420035. This book is great for the train-obsessed toddler who is also in the midst of learning about the different colors. The story is simple: Tom takes his toy train to school, and falls asleep in art class while the teacher is talking about colors. He goes on a colorful journey in his dream on this toy train, and each page is an imaginary land with a color as its theme. When he wakes up, he realizes his friends have drawn all these pictures similar to the places he visited on his adventure. They place the pictures on the floor, and play "choo choo train" pretending they are going to all these places. The story is a bit too simple for my older son Calvin now, but Jason has loved this book and has read it often for more than half a year now. At first, he was a little scared of one of the pages - here Tom's train goes into a tunnel where some fierce black dog-like "monsters" are seen. I was amazed though that the initial fear did not amount to anything, and now he reads through that page with no problems. Jason's favorite is the page with snow, where a snow man sits on the train track with a big hole in his tummy. Jason and I always throw up our hands on that page and yell: "Ai-ya, wo de du du bian cheng shan dong le! (Oh no, my tummy has turned into a tunnel!)"
Da Jia Yi Qi Pu Tie Gui (大家一起铺铁轨) ISBN: 9789862410271. If I could only choose one book to keep for the rest of my life, to capture the spirit of the boys at this precious age, I would seriously consider choosing this book. Calvin picked it out himself when he was three years old and shopping with my mom in a bookstore in Taiwan. It became his favorite book for many months - perhaps close to a year. At some point, it made the switch and became one of Jason's favorite books. It still is. The title means "Everybody builds the train tracks together", and that's pretty much what the book is about. Six adorable kids in overalls and hard hats are building a train track together in the middle of a beautifully drawn natural land. Every page only contains a few words, usually an obstacle, followed by the one-sentence resolution in the next page. For example, one page is "There's a mountain in the front - what do we do?" You turn the page to see these kids with drills and lamps on their hats working together digging a tunnel, and the words just say "Then we just dig a tunnel - ha, the tunnel has been completed!" The most fun part about reading this book is, Calvin automatically assigned a characters to himself. He assigned another one to Jason, which Jason readily accepted. Then they would look at the pictures and talk about what those characters are doing using the first person perspective. They would even start assigning their friends to the other characters - then we really had stories. We can also start talking about their interactions: for example, I might say "Calvin and Jason are carrying a long piece of steel together", or "Calvin is driving the train to the station and look, Jason, you're so excited to see Ge-Ge (big brother) that you're jumping up and down." When Jason gets too old for this book, I'm really going to be sad for a while.
Zhang Zhe Yan Jing De Huo Che Zhan (長著眼睛的火車站) ISBN: 9867375637. This is geared toward the older kid, but the water color paintings of trains present in almost every page are so enticing to the train addicts, even if they're too little to understand most of the words. ...and this is how we started, first with Calvin willing to sit through the long narrative in order to absorb all the illustrations, then with Jason doing the same thing. Now I believe both kids really understand the prose. Yes, I call it "prose" because the story reads like it was written by a fourth grader who has won some award writing an essay about the day when his parents took him and his little brother to see five famous train stations along the coast in Taiwan. The title means "train stations with eyes" and refers to a common architectural feature of these five stations - that they all have these round windows looking like cow's eyes. Like the title itself, the prose contains lots of metaphors. It is tempting to tell myself while reading this story that I'm contributing to their essay writing abilities in the future - but I'm not an expert in child psychology. The same writer and painter also published two other children's books, both about trains. One is "Huo Che Zai Wo Qu Kan Hai" (火车载我去看海) ISBN: 9867375602, and is about a boy's first time riding the train. He rides it on a field trip with his class, and his excitement over every experience is described in first person, again in well written prose. Calvin and Jason both enjoy this book as well, and again the water color paintings on every page is eye-catching. The other one is "Zai Ji Ji Xia Che" (在集集下车) ISBN: 9867375645. This is specifically about the earthquake in 1999 that hit Ji Ji (more commonly known as Chi-Chi), a rural city in central Taiwan, and killed around 2500 people. The story takes the viewpoint of three trains running through the Chi-Chi station, carrying readers from before the earthquake, through a page describing the earthquake, to the successful re-building of Chi-Chi station after the shock. This is a great story for an older child, and teaches many lessons about history, hope, working together. However, my kids are still too young and have not been as interested in this book.
Shen Mi Xiao Huo Che (神秘小火车) ISBN: 9576083176. This is one of a set of five books from a series of Aichi-published books sold only as sets (each with a VCD/CD). I will find a time to review these sets of books in the near future, as we now have (I think) all the sets. For now, I will focus on this book, which stars a little girl Xiao-Xiang who rides on a train herself for the first time. She falls asleep and dreams of the train going through snowy mountains, a tropical island, and the black forest. Of course, many animals appear on the way to make friends. Xiao-Xiang is then woken up, and soon arrives at the station where she sees Grandpa and yells "Yie-Yie!" The Chinese characters for Yie Yie are in super big print, so now Jason points them out and also shouts "Yie Yie!" As Xiao-Xiang walks away from the station holding hands with Yie-Yie and telling him about her adventures on the train, this "Mysterious Little Train" (as the title indicates) is preparing its night journey for the animals, who all start getting on one-by-one...
Selected Books
Wo Shui Bu Zhao (我睡不着), ISBN:9577513883. Have you also had the feeling that there aren't enough Chinese stories that rhyme, that all the rhyming has been reserved to the Tang Dynasty poems? Well, here is one, and it soon became one of my younger son Jason's favorites. The story begins with Mom turning off the lights to a little boy's room, but he says "Wo Shui Bu Zhao! (I can't sleep!)" He and his kitty then go on a fun, dreamy journey to the imaginary night-time city, and with each page turned is a new theme with a witty rhyme. For example, the boy plays guitar in a band with cats and dogs in the street, while a thief quietly runs along the roofs in the background. In the end, the boy gradually becomes more relaxed and starts falling asleep on a boat - of course, to be woken up by his mom telling him it's morning and time to go to school. Now he yells, "Wo hai xiang zai shui yi xia (I want to sleep some more!)". The very last page shows his kitty falling back asleep while he stumbles in his pajamas and book bag. The illustration is made from collages of newspaper and magazine material. I was not used to it at first - perhaps they reminded me too much of the often misspelled designs from Asia. However, we soon got past that detail and were charmed by the mixture of colors and the cute expressions on the characters. Overall, this was one of my favorite books to read to Jason during bedtime. The story is mellow but interesting, and the rhyming made him able to memorize many parts quickly.
Tu Nai Nai de Mien Bao Wu (兔奶奶的麵包屋), ISBN: 9867353188. Since it's getting toward that holiday season, I wanted to recommend this book as soon as possible. This is a heart-warming story about Tu Nai Nai (Grandma Rabbit) who, with the help of her little mice friends, make special Christmas treats for all the bunnies in the orphanage. The illustrations are nice, although with a little too much pink than what suits my taste. Frankly, my two boys liked this book, but it was never one that they asked me to read over and over without end. This book comes with the bonus of a couple of games after the main story, which my kids enjoyed (perhaps even more than the story itself).
Zhen Jia Xiao Zhen Zhu (真假小珍珠), ISBN: 9789866759109,9866759105. This was a real gem that we found! In fact, we first stumbled upon the sequel to Zhen Jia Xiao Zhen Zhu, called Xiao Xiao Ku Ba Wang (小小哭霸王), ISBN: 9789866759345,9866759342. We loved it so much that I immediately went online, looked for Zhen Jia Xiao Zhen Zhu and reserved it from the library. Xiao Zhen Zhu is a naughty (but extremely likable) elementary school girl in a "normal" family with mom, dad and little brother Ku Ba Wang. Xiao Zhen Zhu takes the stage in the first book, in which the whole family (including Xiao Zhen Zhu herself) order a Xiao Zhen Zhu robot from the Dream Factory that represents their ideal Xiao Zhen Zhu. Dad's ideal and mom's ideal are, of course, stereotypically over-polite girls wearing princess dresses. Ku Ba Wang's ideal Xiao Zhen Zhu is in overalls, and immediately offers to play with him and give him all the toys. Xiao Zhen Zhu herself orders a robot to be as much a real replicate of herself as possible, so that she can go out and play while Mom sees the shadow of the robot Xiao Zhen Zhu studying in the room. Of course, things go awry, and the robot was not as perfect as Xiao Zhen Zhu had originally thought... These plots were evolved through humorous dialogue and wonderful cartoon illustrations. The characters feel real and lovable at once. However, only those kids old enough to understand some of this satirical humor can get the most out of these stories. Even those who cannot fully comprehend Zhen Jia Xiao Zhen Zhu might still enjoy the follow-up book, Xiao Xiao Ku Ba Wang. This book containing three stories featuring Ku Ba Wang, Xiao Zhen Zhu's little brother (probably around 4 years old). They are less complex, and stem from the imaginations of a pre-school-age boy. My older son Calvin laughed so hard at certain parts of the stories - I think he really identifies with Ku Ba Wang. Even if your kids are too young, I would recommend the adults to get these books and read them. They are a delight, and will awaken the child in each of us.
Ai Chang Ge De Niao (愛唱歌的鳥), ISBN: 9867517695. Inspirational and funny at the same time, the main character Yi-Ge is a bird with a terrible voice who loves to sing. He fails at practicing himself, studies with a famous teacher (Miss Swan) and ends up corrupting the teacher's voice. He decides to leave music all together, only to find that no matter where he goes, there is music (there are some wonderful wordless pictures of a doggie punk band, kitty jazz band, African drumming alligators, a penguin choir, and a sheep orchestra). Finally, Yi-Ge settles in a dessert on a big piece of rock where he sees and hears no one. He could not help singing when he saw the beautiful sunset. His voice awakened the rock underneath him, which was actually a gigantic bird named Dou-Dou who had been sleeping for years. Dou-Dou loves Yi-Ge's voice, and joins him in singing together at the top of their lungs until sunrise. Of course, they decide to become best friends and travel the world together as a duet. The voices are illustrated throughout the book as wavy, colorful lines. You can almost tell from the shapes and colors what the voice sounds like. I have a recording of this story, but the illustrations add so much more to the words, and make a creative connection between art and music.
Qi Chuang la Huang Di (起床啦皇帝), ISBN: 9622406092. This is a humorous mix of modern story-telling set in the background of the Chinese imperial palace, in which a fictional little boy is an emperor who just cannot get up in the mornings. The illustration is done with a special type of paper cutting, and there is a nice balance of details needed for the setting and the simplicity needed to convey the characters' expressions. For example, Calvin always laughs at the expressions on the eunich who runs behind the sleeping emperor (being dragged by another eunich), yelling "Emperor, you forgot your hat!" The story seems to break into two halves. The first half rhymes, and describes the emperor's late-rising habits. The second half stops rhyming and becomes a dialogue between the emperor and a poor farmer boy who slipped into the palace to pick ball. They ended up kicking ball together, and decided to do this every morning as an incentive to wake themselves up. This friendship lasts through a page that illustrates the four seasons showing the passing of time, and we arrive at the final page of the two adult versions of the emperor and the farmer kicking ball together. No matter how many times I read this story, the last page always brings a little smile to both my and Calvin's faces. I do need to warn those with sensitive kids: I usually skip the part on the first page about this emperor's father and grandfather dying, and go straight to him being an emperor without much background. I also skip the sentence where the empress (emperor's mom) spanks the eunichs to punish them for not getting the emperor up in time.
Qi E Re Qi Qiu (企鹅热气球), ISBN: 9789866759147,9866759148. What kid does not like penguins? What kid does not dream of riding on a hot air balloon? This story satisfies the fantasies of the majority of kids, including the kid in me. With no explanations needed, Penguin lands his hot air balloon in the forest and offers rides to all the animals. The book is then broken into several tales, each describing a particular journey. I have recorded two of these episodes, one of which starts with a turtle who spent all night walking to make sure he was the first one to get to the hot air balloon in the morning. However, he forgot to get his ticket! So he "runs" back to get his ticket, and meanwhile Penguin will not let any animal go in front of him. All is merry though - Penguin thinks of many fun activities for the animals while they wait. Finally, they all paint a message for Turtle on the hot air balloon so that Turtle would be inspired to keep "running". You can imagine the happy ending. Even though the plot does not have as much "conflict" as many people require for a story to be interesting, the dialogues are humorous, and the characters look adorable. I believe most children will love this book, as my kids do.
Are your kids as much into trains as mine are? Next time, I will review our favorite train-related Chinese children's books. There are many!!
Tu Nai Nai de Mien Bao Wu (兔奶奶的麵包屋), ISBN: 9867353188. Since it's getting toward that holiday season, I wanted to recommend this book as soon as possible. This is a heart-warming story about Tu Nai Nai (Grandma Rabbit) who, with the help of her little mice friends, make special Christmas treats for all the bunnies in the orphanage. The illustrations are nice, although with a little too much pink than what suits my taste. Frankly, my two boys liked this book, but it was never one that they asked me to read over and over without end. This book comes with the bonus of a couple of games after the main story, which my kids enjoyed (perhaps even more than the story itself).
Zhen Jia Xiao Zhen Zhu (真假小珍珠), ISBN: 9789866759109,9866759105. This was a real gem that we found! In fact, we first stumbled upon the sequel to Zhen Jia Xiao Zhen Zhu, called Xiao Xiao Ku Ba Wang (小小哭霸王), ISBN: 9789866759345,9866759342. We loved it so much that I immediately went online, looked for Zhen Jia Xiao Zhen Zhu and reserved it from the library. Xiao Zhen Zhu is a naughty (but extremely likable) elementary school girl in a "normal" family with mom, dad and little brother Ku Ba Wang. Xiao Zhen Zhu takes the stage in the first book, in which the whole family (including Xiao Zhen Zhu herself) order a Xiao Zhen Zhu robot from the Dream Factory that represents their ideal Xiao Zhen Zhu. Dad's ideal and mom's ideal are, of course, stereotypically over-polite girls wearing princess dresses. Ku Ba Wang's ideal Xiao Zhen Zhu is in overalls, and immediately offers to play with him and give him all the toys. Xiao Zhen Zhu herself orders a robot to be as much a real replicate of herself as possible, so that she can go out and play while Mom sees the shadow of the robot Xiao Zhen Zhu studying in the room. Of course, things go awry, and the robot was not as perfect as Xiao Zhen Zhu had originally thought... These plots were evolved through humorous dialogue and wonderful cartoon illustrations. The characters feel real and lovable at once. However, only those kids old enough to understand some of this satirical humor can get the most out of these stories. Even those who cannot fully comprehend Zhen Jia Xiao Zhen Zhu might still enjoy the follow-up book, Xiao Xiao Ku Ba Wang. This book containing three stories featuring Ku Ba Wang, Xiao Zhen Zhu's little brother (probably around 4 years old). They are less complex, and stem from the imaginations of a pre-school-age boy. My older son Calvin laughed so hard at certain parts of the stories - I think he really identifies with Ku Ba Wang. Even if your kids are too young, I would recommend the adults to get these books and read them. They are a delight, and will awaken the child in each of us.
Ai Chang Ge De Niao (愛唱歌的鳥), ISBN: 9867517695. Inspirational and funny at the same time, the main character Yi-Ge is a bird with a terrible voice who loves to sing. He fails at practicing himself, studies with a famous teacher (Miss Swan) and ends up corrupting the teacher's voice. He decides to leave music all together, only to find that no matter where he goes, there is music (there are some wonderful wordless pictures of a doggie punk band, kitty jazz band, African drumming alligators, a penguin choir, and a sheep orchestra). Finally, Yi-Ge settles in a dessert on a big piece of rock where he sees and hears no one. He could not help singing when he saw the beautiful sunset. His voice awakened the rock underneath him, which was actually a gigantic bird named Dou-Dou who had been sleeping for years. Dou-Dou loves Yi-Ge's voice, and joins him in singing together at the top of their lungs until sunrise. Of course, they decide to become best friends and travel the world together as a duet. The voices are illustrated throughout the book as wavy, colorful lines. You can almost tell from the shapes and colors what the voice sounds like. I have a recording of this story, but the illustrations add so much more to the words, and make a creative connection between art and music.
Qi Chuang la Huang Di (起床啦皇帝), ISBN: 9622406092. This is a humorous mix of modern story-telling set in the background of the Chinese imperial palace, in which a fictional little boy is an emperor who just cannot get up in the mornings. The illustration is done with a special type of paper cutting, and there is a nice balance of details needed for the setting and the simplicity needed to convey the characters' expressions. For example, Calvin always laughs at the expressions on the eunich who runs behind the sleeping emperor (being dragged by another eunich), yelling "Emperor, you forgot your hat!" The story seems to break into two halves. The first half rhymes, and describes the emperor's late-rising habits. The second half stops rhyming and becomes a dialogue between the emperor and a poor farmer boy who slipped into the palace to pick ball. They ended up kicking ball together, and decided to do this every morning as an incentive to wake themselves up. This friendship lasts through a page that illustrates the four seasons showing the passing of time, and we arrive at the final page of the two adult versions of the emperor and the farmer kicking ball together. No matter how many times I read this story, the last page always brings a little smile to both my and Calvin's faces. I do need to warn those with sensitive kids: I usually skip the part on the first page about this emperor's father and grandfather dying, and go straight to him being an emperor without much background. I also skip the sentence where the empress (emperor's mom) spanks the eunichs to punish them for not getting the emperor up in time.
Qi E Re Qi Qiu (企鹅热气球), ISBN: 9789866759147,9866759148. What kid does not like penguins? What kid does not dream of riding on a hot air balloon? This story satisfies the fantasies of the majority of kids, including the kid in me. With no explanations needed, Penguin lands his hot air balloon in the forest and offers rides to all the animals. The book is then broken into several tales, each describing a particular journey. I have recorded two of these episodes, one of which starts with a turtle who spent all night walking to make sure he was the first one to get to the hot air balloon in the morning. However, he forgot to get his ticket! So he "runs" back to get his ticket, and meanwhile Penguin will not let any animal go in front of him. All is merry though - Penguin thinks of many fun activities for the animals while they wait. Finally, they all paint a message for Turtle on the hot air balloon so that Turtle would be inspired to keep "running". You can imagine the happy ending. Even though the plot does not have as much "conflict" as many people require for a story to be interesting, the dialogues are humorous, and the characters look adorable. I believe most children will love this book, as my kids do.
Are your kids as much into trains as mine are? Next time, I will review our favorite train-related Chinese children's books. There are many!!
Purpose and Background
Finding reviews of English children's books that you can order from Amazon is super easy in the United States. Similarly, in Taiwan or China, many websites exist that review children's books as well as sell them directly to you. However, finding Chinese children's books in the U.S. can be a problem in itself. Even when you're in a place already surrounded by Chinese culture such as the San Francisco Bay Area, it may still be difficult to know which are the best Chinese books for your kids, and where to get them from. My purpose here is not to solve all these problems. Rather, I'm going to take a very simple approach of focusing on how and where we get our Chinese children's books, and which ones we like. Just a little background - my son Calvin is 4 1/2 years old, and my other son Jason is 2 1/2 years old. My husband is American and speaks primarily English (with some Chinese words and phrases here and there). I was born in Taiwan and came to Virginia to start 7th grade there. I did manage to pick up English really quickly, and fortunately also continued with Chinese. So now I speak Mandarin to the kids, and read them Chinese books every night by their bedside. Amazingly, they still mostly speak Mandarin to me, and Calvin's Mandarin is quite advanced such that he can comprehend even the more complex stories.
My Sources of Chinese Children's Books
1. Library. We have the fortune of living close to the Millbrae branch of the San Mateo County Libraries. I believe amongst these branches, Millbrae and Foster City may have the largest Chinese children's collections. The next largest may be the main San Mateo library, and some books seem to also be in Daly City. However, the benefit is that you can look for books online, and when you find the ones you want, the library will hold and deliver those books to your selected branch for 75 cents. In my list of books below, and also for the books for which I have made audio soundtracks (https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B5DrHelJxyNSZGU1MTczMDEtZGQzNS00YmQwLWFmYmEtYzE0Yzc1N2UyNWNl&hl=en), I include their ISBN numbers which can be used to search for specific books online via the library site. Oh, and before I forget, here's the Peninsula Library's website: http://www.plsinfo.org/.
2. Books and Me (http://www.booksandme.org/). This is a non-profit cultural foundation located in Los Altos. It really comes down to a couple of rooms in an office building there, but the main room is packed with Chinese children's books. I used to drive there once a month to satisfy my cravings, but the distance (coupled with their policies on maximum number of books and a maximum of 4 weeks per book) made it difficult.
3. Local bookstores. The one closest to us is Nan Hai in Millbrae. Nan Hai also has a website from which you can order books online (http://www.nanhai.com/), but I've not used that. Another place around us is the World Journal headquarters in Millbrae (世界日报）(http://www.worldjournal.com/pages/contact_us). I'm sure there are many other places, but we just haven't explored far enough.
4. Directly from Asia. Of course this would involve either a trip by you, or some favors from grandparents or aunts and uncles. Amongst some of our recommended books, I will also include ones that we got directly from Taiwan, which I have not seen in any libraries or bookstores here yet.
Finding reviews of English children's books that you can order from Amazon is super easy in the United States. Similarly, in Taiwan or China, many websites exist that review children's books as well as sell them directly to you. However, finding Chinese children's books in the U.S. can be a problem in itself. Even when you're in a place already surrounded by Chinese culture such as the San Francisco Bay Area, it may still be difficult to know which are the best Chinese books for your kids, and where to get them from. My purpose here is not to solve all these problems. Rather, I'm going to take a very simple approach of focusing on how and where we get our Chinese children's books, and which ones we like. Just a little background - my son Calvin is 4 1/2 years old, and my other son Jason is 2 1/2 years old. My husband is American and speaks primarily English (with some Chinese words and phrases here and there). I was born in Taiwan and came to Virginia to start 7th grade there. I did manage to pick up English really quickly, and fortunately also continued with Chinese. So now I speak Mandarin to the kids, and read them Chinese books every night by their bedside. Amazingly, they still mostly speak Mandarin to me, and Calvin's Mandarin is quite advanced such that he can comprehend even the more complex stories.
My Sources of Chinese Children's Books
1. Library. We have the fortune of living close to the Millbrae branch of the San Mateo County Libraries. I believe amongst these branches, Millbrae and Foster City may have the largest Chinese children's collections. The next largest may be the main San Mateo library, and some books seem to also be in Daly City. However, the benefit is that you can look for books online, and when you find the ones you want, the library will hold and deliver those books to your selected branch for 75 cents. In my list of books below, and also for the books for which I have made audio soundtracks (https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B5DrHelJxyNSZGU1MTczMDEtZGQzNS00YmQwLWFmYmEtYzE0Yzc1N2UyNWNl&hl=en), I include their ISBN numbers which can be used to search for specific books online via the library site. Oh, and before I forget, here's the Peninsula Library's website: http://www.plsinfo.org/.
2. Books and Me (http://www.booksandme.org/). This is a non-profit cultural foundation located in Los Altos. It really comes down to a couple of rooms in an office building there, but the main room is packed with Chinese children's books. I used to drive there once a month to satisfy my cravings, but the distance (coupled with their policies on maximum number of books and a maximum of 4 weeks per book) made it difficult.
3. Local bookstores. The one closest to us is Nan Hai in Millbrae. Nan Hai also has a website from which you can order books online (http://www.nanhai.com/), but I've not used that. Another place around us is the World Journal headquarters in Millbrae (世界日报）(http://www.worldjournal.com/pages/contact_us). I'm sure there are many other places, but we just haven't explored far enough.
4. Directly from Asia. Of course this would involve either a trip by you, or some favors from grandparents or aunts and uncles. Amongst some of our recommended books, I will also include ones that we got directly from Taiwan, which I have not seen in any libraries or bookstores here yet.
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