Today I am sharing some of my favorite books to teach about Asian culture and countries. These books work for younger kids and also help teach ABC's. They are a series of ABC rhyming books about Asian languages and culture. Each book has information about how certain letters in the language are pronounced.
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| From My First Book of Vietnamese Words |
At the end of each book there is a list of the words and their meanings.
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| From My First Book of Vietnamese Words |
The books have colorful illustrations and rhyming information using the word from the language of the book and its English version as well as a bit about the word in the particular culture. Going in alphabetical order we will start with My First Book of Chinese Words by Faye-Lynn Wu and illustrated by Aya Padron. This book is being released on August 29, 2017. I reviewed the first version of this book previously and it is still available.
The book goes through the English alphabet. In this one it has the Chinese writing of the word used. The illustration always demonstrates what the word means.
If a letter is not in the Chinese alphabet, like i, an English word is used (in this case ice) with the Chinese word of it in the rhyme. There are asides to explain that the letter does not exist in the Chinese alphabet. There are also asides that explain more about the culture when it goes with the word. See the aside note about tea in China.
Our next book is My First Book of Hindi Words by Rina Singh and illustrated by Farida Zaman. This one came out a year ago.
The illustrations in this book are more simplistic and colorful than the ones in the Chinese book. It teaches about the Hindi language and the Indian culture. As a lover of chai I had to share the letter C with you.
As you can see the word is also written in the Hindi language as well as the English pronunciation.
Our next book is My First Book of Japanese Words by Michelle Haney Brown and illustrated by Aya Padron. This version of the book is being released August 29, 2017. I reviewed the first version previously and it is still available.
I find the illustrations rather relaxing in this one. What about you?
This book follows the young girl throughout all the words with wonderful explanations for the words like gimchi (or kimchi) and hanbok.
Many of the pages in this book have the side notes and of course they have the Korean writing for the words as well.
This book has a mixture of illustrations and does not follow one child like many of the other books. The pages are colorful and there is so much information in it.
There are the aside notes throughout it. I love how it adds to the information about the culture.
