Chinese Home Library: Best Books of 2020 & 2021

This will be my last (and laziest) post for 2021 …..  a wrap-up of our favourite 5 Chinese books (actually series of books) as voted by each of my kids from the past two years.   I’ve split this into age groups, so you can see what interested my children at different ages and stages.  I’ve also shown the inside, so you can assess whether it might be of interest to your family.

Each of my kids is very different.  The eldest is a real bookworm, who loves mysteries and history.  The middle is an animal and nature lover.  The youngest is a little young to have a preference – whilst she’s still a preschooler, I’m sharing with her lots of books about resilience and diversity, and naturally, some of these have become favourites.

Important note:  All kids are different.  Maybe your family will hate these books; maybe they’ll be too easy.  Parenting isn’t a competition of having the cleanest house, healthiest dinners, earliest bedtimes…. and neither is reading.  This list is meant to be for ideas (I’ve always found ideas of book recommendations from others helpful), and nothing more   There is no need for comparison between the sun and the moon, they each shine when it’s their time.

Our Favourite Simplified Chinese Books By Age

Age 8 – 9 (2021) 

All independently read by my daughter

• Zoroli 怪傑佐儸力 
• Mi Xiao Quan 米小圈上学记一年级
• Detective Pipi 屁屁侦探推理版 (we have both the picture booksets and bridge books sets; she loves them all, but if you had to force her to choose, she does prefer the bridge books)
• World History Adventure Comics 寻宝记
• Mandarin Companion (Secret Garden 秘密花园 , and Sixty Year Dream 六十年的梦 among others)

Insides of our favorite five series

Age 7 – 8 (2020)

All independently read, with assistance from optical dictionary pen

• Crow Bakery 乌鸦面包店
• Diary of a Worm 苍蝇的日记
• Little Fox 小狐狸的故事
• Frog & Toad 青蛙和蟾蜍 （套装4册)
• Les P’tites Poules 不一样的卡梅拉

Insides of our favorite five series

Age 6  –  7 (2021) 

All independently read, with assistance from optical dictionary pen

• 11 Cats 11只猫系列
• Little Brother Mouse 可爱的鼠小弟!
• Words of Wisdom 智慧的话丛书
• Madeline 玛德琳
• 100 Storey Building 100层的房子系列

Insides of our favorite five series

Age 4 – 5 (2020) 

Starting to self-read, but with lots of narration from Luka or Le Le reading pen

• Elephant & Piggie 小猪小象系列 or 开心小猪和大象哥哥
• Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus series 别让鸽子开巴士
• T-Rex series 宫西达也恐龙系列 (全套7册)  (and other Tatsuya Miyanshi books like Magic Candy Store 神奇糖果店  …. These are too difficult to self read, but fun to listen to!)
• My Magical Toilet 我的神奇马桶（奇思妙趣三部曲）
• Le Le Books 樂樂文化

Insides of our favorite five series

Age 3 – 4 (2021) 

Mainly read using Luka or Habbi Habbi wand, or book’s own audio (this is a great age for audio books)

• Angry Price 生气王子 and I am A Fire Breathing Dragon I am a fire breathing dragon, and other Lai Ma books
• Our World 世界认知纸板书系列
• Habbi Habbi Bilingual Books
• Todd Parr Courage & Strength Books  淘第有个大世界
• I Can Read Nursery Rhymes 我会念童谣

Insides of our favorite five series

3 years and below (2020) 

All read using Luka Reading Robot

• Eric Carle books 好饿的毛毛虫, etc**
• Press Here 点点点, Change Change 变变变, Little Yellow Dot 小黄点**
• Meg and Mog Series 海伦·尼科尔**
• Spot the Dog 小玻系列翻翻书：双语故事**
• Happy Baby Chicks 幸福小鸡系列（套装共6册)

Note: **For these toddler books, actually in fact the first four sets we only have the English copies, and Luka narrates them in Chinese (and English). The fifth book Happy Baby Chicks we borrowed from the local library. My daughter really surprised me when she said this was among her list of favourites. It was a sweet book, but I didn’t realise just how memorable for her. I have no photos unfortunately and they weren’t available this week when I tried to look again for this this post

Encourgaging kids to READ

Maybe we got lucky with the last two years with my kids being prime ages for learning to read, and with the world outside not letting us do too much else. We have spent a good portion of the 2020 and 2021 indoors, snuggled up with books. But it’s never too late to start reading. I found it’s now become harder as my eldest is reaching tween years, and has distinct tastes in books, and yet there’s less information (at least written in English) out there on what to read. As she’s reading independently, there’s always a lurking question in my mind about how much she is actually comprehending too.

There’s a helpful post from Hands-On Chinese Fun about how to improve Chinese reading comprehension for lower primary students, with a lovely approach in it about the child narrating back the books to parents, and turning the reading from passive into active learning.  Well worth a read!    I think this is particularly helpful at the self-reading stage, as a strategy to ensure the reading is being understood.

What else is there to know?

If you’re curious about what else is in our book collection and how I’ve tried to select books, my previous post is an analysis of all the 1100+ books we currently have, and some background into the whys and where they came from.

Actually I’d love to know what your family’s favourite books are! Drop me a line as I welcome all suggestions. I love looking at suggestions from others, and if you do too, I’d suggest checking out Motherly Notes for kids aged 7+, where you can find a huge list of great Traditional Chinese bridging book and chapter book reviews for inspiration. For younger kids, Growing Hearts 123 has nice suggestions for Simplified Chinese picture books and comics.

If you are curious about reading more with your own family, some earlier posts to look at on my Lah Lah Banana blog would be:

• What to Read after your child knowns 1000 characters
• Best Chinese children’s bookstores in Singapore
• The value of extensive reading
• Secret to finding great Luka compatible books in the NLB borrowing collection