Fun Books for a New Year

Xiao Zhu Bu Hui Fei (小猪不会飞  ISBN: 9867742362).  This book is a gem that I found in the Books and Me library.  Calvin liked it a lot a year ago, and I recently re-loaned it to read to the kids, and Jason started loving it.  The original English version, “Pigs Can’t Fly”, is no longer in print, and the author/illustrator Ben Cort became more well-known for illustrating “Dinosaur love Underpants”.  Fortunately, the Chinese version is still being sold in Taiwan, and I was lucky enough to be able to buy one via my mom.  There are no significant moral lessons in this story – it is simply a hilarious tale about a pig who wants to be everything else but a pig.  For example, Calvin and Jason love the part in which the little pig ties a long hose to his nose and big leaves to his ears, and stand in front of the much-taller kangaroo saying “Hello there my friend – I’m a big elephant, and I’m so glad I have a long nose from which I can shoot water.”  The kangaroo laughs and tells him he’s only a pig, and before the angry pig can argue, he sneezes and shoots snot (…depicted more elegantly as a cloud…) out of his long hose.  A number of these mis-adventures end with the pig falling from a tree a pile of mud while trying to be a bird, and while rolling in this mud pile, he has found that being in pig is, afterall, lots of fun and joy.

Wo Men Jia de Chang Ban Deng (我们家的长板凳  ISBN: 9577514472).  Here is a book that captures so much the Chinese (more specifically, the rural Taiwanese) culture, such that I initially suspected my boys wouldn’t like it that much because they just wouldn’t get it.  I was pleasantly surprised that they really enjoy reading this book, and it is now one of the few books which both boys agree to read together.  The book centers on “the long wooden stool in our house”, an object foreign even to myself, who grew up in Taipei.  Each page describes a use of this stool – either as “grandpa (A-Gong)’s naptime bed”, “our dragon boat”, “our seats during a theater show in front of the temple (miao-kou)”, or “a must-have at new year’s eve dinner (nian ye fan).”  The corresponding pictures are humorous and endearing.  My favorite is a center-fold drawing of a Taiwanese temple on one side, with “The Monkey King” being acted out on stage next to it, and all these families with children at their various activities filling the rest of the pages.  Each family has brought a long wooden stool to sit on, and this page really illustrates the meaning of why such a banal object can encompass a huge sense of cultural and familial ties.  Calvin once pointed to this picture and asked me where this was.  When I said “Taiwan”, he said he really wanted to go there next time.  However, he reminded me that we would first need to buy a “long wooden stool”.

My mom recently mailed me two books from Taiwan which she found on sale at a bookstore.  These are Da Xiang Ye Ye de Mao Zi (大象爷爷的帽子  ISBN: 9789862430941) and Sheng Ri Li Wu (生日礼物  ISBN: 9789862430934).  I won't go into the details about these books - let's just say they both have simple and solid plots involving cutely-drawn animals, and are good for ages ~2-5.  They also come with CD's of the stories read.  For those of you looking for big books with large pictures and large prints, these satisfy those criteria.  I also checked out the publisher's website: http://www,168books.com.tw and found that they sell a lot of books and other children's educational items online.  The descriptions of shipment details sound promising that one may be able to order from out of Taiwan.  I will personally check with them and post the answers on this page.  Meanwhile, if you read Chinese and like to browse through books, their website has quite a selection.