About the book
Language: English, Simplified Chinese and pinyin
ISBN-13 : 978-0823447510
A strikingly beautiful bilingual color concept book that introduces young Chinese readers to traditional Chinese New Year objects and the multitude of colors in both English and Chinese.
Red 红 is the color of the firecrackers and gold 金 is for shiny gold coins. Each object is beautifully and meticulously illustrated.
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What I like about this book
The watercolor illustrations of this book are absolutely gorgeous to look at. Each item is filled with rich details and simply paired with one color, one English word, one Chinese word and the pinyin. It is a nice easy read for toddlers.
The pictures are all Chinese New Year related, so you have the usual lantern, oranges. As you can see in the book insight picture above, the level of detail in the blue vase is so stunningly vivid.
What I dislike about this book
I wish that the author had added a sentence to each color/object. For example, “Red is for noisy firecrackers that are lit up on New Year’s Eve.” It would have been a far more interesting read if there were more descriptions.
(May I add that Rich Lo has since published another board book One Two Three Dim Sum which is slightly more descriptive and is another beautifully illustrated book for toddlers. Read about it here.)
My 3 year old toddler pointed out at the end of the book, “Where is White color?”. It would have made sense to include white in the book.
Rating
Where to purchase
I heartily recommend this book for very young readers, (under the age of 3) hence I suggest you choose the board book version instead of the hardcover.
If you would like to build up your own Chinese picture book library, I have some recommendations for you.
Happy Reading!
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