Hello fellow Mandarin Chinese homeschoolers! 你们好！Today I would like to share with you a really cute Chinese board book series, 彩虹色的小白鱼绘本 (Little White Fish). We have been reading them at home, and it has definitely been a big hit with my preschooler.
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About the Little White Fish book series 彩虹色的小白鱼绘本系列
Created by Belgian illustrator Guido van Genechten and first published in 2004, these books are perfect for preschoolers. The cute illustrations are set against a black background, which makes the brightly coloured sea creatures really pop within the pages.
The Little White Fish series playfully combines elementary concepts within the storyline. For instance, in Little White Fish has a party, we meet all his guests, who have turned up in pairs. The long sea snake and the short sea snake; the big sea urchin and the small sea urchin and so on. My little one absolutely loved looking at the beautiful sea creatures while learning opposites. Now she can labelled all the sea creatures in Chinese, as well as their attributes.
Furthermore, each book has a simple yet familiar storyline for young children. Another firm favourite in the house is the original Little White Fish which in Chinese has a more apt title 小白鱼找妈妈。This book depicts poor sad Little White Fish going around the ocean looking for mom. He meets a whole lot of other sea creatures who are not mom. My little one had a lot of fun recognising same/different in this particular book, and even more fun saying “不是！不是！不是妈妈！”
Below is a video of the “Little White Fish has a party” book read in Chinese.
Books in the series
小白鱼了不起
小白鱼找妈妈
小白鱼过生日
小白鱼会数数
小白鱼放学啦
小白鱼真棒
好朋友一起玩
大海里的美丽
不一样的爸爸
Where to purchase
You can get individual books or the entire series in the following retailers. As this is quite a popular board book series, there are many different sets to choose from. Hence, I have not listed the ISBN in this post, as there are simply too many versions on the market.
**Please note that for the different Chinese languages, there are different books in the sets. In addition, the titles may differ slightly due to differences in translation.
Simplified Chinese:
Traditional Chinese:
E-book version also available at Ellabook and Kada Books.
