My First Book of Chinese Words: An ABC Rhyming Book of Chinese Language and Culture (My First Words)

"Alphabet books that reinforce the beauty and importance of learning about many languages and cultures." —Booklist

My First Book of Chinese Words introduces young children to basic words and concepts in the Chinese language through colorful rhymes and beautiful imagery.

It is a book that parents and young children will enjoy reading together. The Chinese words in the book are all common, everyday items, and the rhymes are informative and fun for children.

The goal of My First Book of Chinese Words is to familiarize children with the basic sounds and written characters of Chinese, to introduce core concepts of Chinese culture and to illustrate the ways in which Chinese sounds differ from English ones. Teachers and parents will welcome the cultural notes at the back of the book and appreciate how the book is organized using a familiar ABC structure. Each word is presented in Chinese characters (both Simplified and Traditional) as well as Romanized Pinyin for easy pronunciation, and there is free native-speaker audio available online.

With the help of this book, we hope more children (and adults) will soon join the more than one billion people worldwide who speak Chinese!

Faye-Lynn Wu was born and raised in Taiwan. Her experiences of teaching her own children in the U.S. and managing language programs for early education have led her to focus on introducing language to kids in the most positive way possible. She is the admissions officer at an independent school in Berkley, California, serves on the board of a Chinese language school, and teaches Mandarin. She is the author of Chinese and English Nursery Rhymes.

Aya Padron is a freelance artist who works in many media, among them painting and photography. She is the illustrator of Korean for Beginners and My First Book of Korean Words.