Children's Books discussion

I'm looking for any books written in Chinese (very simple beginner level with a Roman alphabet primarily and Chinese characters below) and English for the 7-10 year old group. I've only come across one or two like this. Can anyone make any recommendations?

Abigail, I didn't actually think I'd get a reply let alone one with questions (lol!) Every time I go to a bookstore and ask they look at me kind of funny and say that they don't have anything (!) My son is taking Mandarin Chinese lessons and I'd like him to have some books (he's 7) being that he's an avid reader. I think the Chinese characters would be the way to go. Looking forward to your "list" :D

Thanks so much for all that info Abigail :D

Our library system http://www.pwcgov.org/library has children's books in Chinese available through InterLibrary Loan. You could start your request with your own public library and ask to borrow some of our books. Look in our catalog for the subject: Chinese Language, books in. We purchased them from Tsai Fong Books http://www.bookswindow.com

Thanks for the link Blair :D

I thought I would add this under this heading because of the "opther languages".

My son (7) is in french immersion and I am always on the lookout for easy french books for him. Ones that either he can read to himself or ones that I can read to him - my trouble is that I haven't studies french for almsot 25 years and have some difficulty with pronunciation of some french words.

Any suggestions? Anybody know of any books tha thave a pronunciation guide at hte back? Or maybe even a cd that I can listen to so that I can get the pronunciation correct?

Shannon I have a 7 year old in the French public system so here's what they read that may be of interest to your little guy (I don't know of any that have an English pronunciation guide though).

Disney has an entire series on nature in French for kids with Winnie the Pooh as the narrator:

La petite encyclopédie de Winnie. La Terre by Josette Gontier

Disney also has a line of books called "Ma première bibliothèque rose" that features a lot of Disney characters in a story. A good one is Winnie l'Ourson et la pluie

Kididoc (Nathan is the publisher) has an entire collection on stories about the senses, the circus, cowboys, music etc etc). These are discovery books with lift the flap and pull the arrow but it's not babyish. A good one is Le cirque by Adèle Ciboul.

Trois souris peintres by Ellen Stoll Walsh is cute and simple for someone learning the language. It was translated from the English Mouse Paint. My kids like to read the same book in both languages and compare them.

Bon appétit Max by Alain Cliche is another discovery kind of book about eating.

Lire l'heure by Jenny Tyler (another English one that was transalted) is great for learning time in French. It comes with a little clock built into the book and you have set the hands to the correct time according to the story.

The tooth fairy in French is called "La Petite Souris" and a cute book about that is La veritable histoire de la petite souris by Anne-Marie Boucher. It comes with a little velvet pouch to keep the tooth until the Petite Souris passes by. Your son might need a little help with the text.

Coucou Bébé is an adorable lift the flap series and can be good for a beginner but the pictures are meant more for very young children. Les petites bêtes by E&J Beaumont is a favourite.

Drôles de petites bêtes is a series by Anton Krings that just about every French kid in elementary school has. The most famous is Mireille l'Abeille

If you know the British cartoon character Noddy the French version is "Oui-Oui". There's a whole series of readers about him in "Ma p'tite collection Hachette". Hachette has a good website too for books: www.hachette.jeunesse.com and for Oui-Oui there's www.oui-oui.fr

Nickelodeon has translated nearly all the Dora the Explorer books in French. La politesse avec Dora by Albin Michel is good.

I don't know if the Barbapapas are still popular there but they are in French. There's Barbapapa & les couleurs that's colourful with one to two lines per page.

Mr Man and Little Miss is all available in French but they can be a bit hard for a beginniner because there's a lot of the passé simple used. My kids have English and French and they love both. A cute one Monsieur Grand (the English one is "Mr Tall") or Mme Chipie et la sirène (the English one is "Little Miss Trouble and the Mermaid").

Fleurus (www.editionsfleurus.com) has a lot of children's books for different age groups. They have a birthday series from 1 to 10 years old and it comes with a CD read-a-long. Histoires pour mes 5 ans is pretty easy for a child.

Nathan has a non-fiction collection called "Mon petit monde 6/9 ans" that's very interesting. A good one is Fossiles et roches

If you want to read to him there's always Les fables de La Fontaine published by éditions Lito. It would be too hard I'd think for him but it has nice colourful pictures that tell the story while an adult reads.

For learning to count there's a boardbook collection by Gründ (it was translated from Italian). 10 petits ours.

If you know the English series "Where's that Fish?" it's been translated into French. We have Où est le canard?. Easy to read and fun to try to find the duck in the funny pictures.

There's a Strawberry Shortcake sing-a-long kind of book that takes American songs for kids and puts French words to it. You press the button for the melody and you sing along. Charlotte aux Fraises Chansons gourmandes.

Hachette also has a dictionary-like series (but not exactly a dictionary) for kids. One that my be good for someone learning the language is L'imagier des syllabes et des mots 5-7 ans This one teaches pronunciation, spelling and word recognition via games.

If you want a magazine subscription there are tons. For nature themed ones there's "Wakou 3-7 ans" or "Toboggan" that has games or recipes, short stories and craft activities that you can do with the children but it's all easy enough for them to read. It's almost like "Highlights for Kids" if you know that mag. Milan presse has a pretty extensive list at www.milanpresse.com

Hope that helps a bit. If there's a particular area your son is interested in I may have something I could recommend :)

Wow, thank you for the great and speedy response. I have ordered La veritable histoire de la petite souris as I t hink my son will start losing his teeth any time now. I looked up a few others on Amazon but they are either unavailable from there for very expensive (Le cirque was over $100!!). I will write these down and take them with me to the school library.

My son is very interested in mysteries and we have read all of the secret seven by Enid Blyton, Hardy Boys, and Encyclopedia Brown as well as some Canadian mystery series. We have also read Magic Treehouse and I know that it has been translated into French, I just have assumed it would be too hard.

Thank you again for your wonderful suggestions. Its too bad my son doesn't like Winnie the Pooh.

Shannon those prices are crazy! You may want to try Amazon.ca or Amazon.fr for way more reasonable prices. Glad I could help :)

Another place to look for the books is a website called campusbooks.com. I used it alot when I was in college, and actually still use it all the time. You just type in the book you're looking for, and the site searches all the online book sellers and gives you a list of the prices its found (new and used).

Good luck!

The International Children's Digital Library has books in many languages that can be read online. Unfortunately, they only seem to have 3 in Chinese but there are over 40 in French.
http://en.childrenslibrary.org/

Thanks for that link Bernadette :)

You might want to try www.chinasprout.com for the Chinese books. They have a large selection.