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.