Genre: Children’s Fiction/Educational
COMING SOON, JUNE 2008 RELEASE
Title: The Frog in the Well
AUTHOR: Irene Y. Tsai & Joyce Lin
Illustrated by Pattie Caprio
Every parent loves a book that will entertain and teach their child. CE Bilingual Books has come up with a clever way to teach language and culture that is sure to please even the most discriminating young mind.
“The Frog in the Well” is a beautifully illustrated Chinese children’s fable about the foibles of close-mindedness. A frog living in a well believes his well to be the whole world, and is confident in his vast knowledge of the world, until he meets a sea turtle and learns the world is much larger than he imagined. The story ends with a straightforward pronouncement of its very valuable moral.
The short tale is sweet and amusing enough to stand on its own, but these series of books offer much more. The book begins by defining the style of the Chinese idiom, and their cultural position, then explains how the author uses the Mandarin Chinese “pinyin”, a phonetic system to represent sounds. Each line is then translated into Mandarin Chinese, with the corresponding sounds above that.
The idea for the series is the brainchild of Irene Tsai, an American-Chinese engineer and a published children’s author, whose love of books was nurtured by her mother. Pattie Caprio designed and illustrated the book, and the translation was done by Joyce Lin.
Whether a child is learning Chinese or simply filled with natural curiosity, “The Frog in the Well” will fascinate them. I personally know one 8 year old, my daughter, who had great fun reading the story and discovering a piece of Chinese culture in the symbols and sounds, and who is earnestly looking forward to seeing more from this educational series.
Highly Recommended by Reviewer: Nancy Morris, Allbooks Reviews.
Title: The Frog in the Well
Author: Irene Y. Tsai & Joyce Lin
Publisher: CE Bilingual Books
ISBN: 13 978-0-9801305-1-5
Pages: 33
Price: 14.95
Available: Amazon.com
Books may be purchased directly from the publisher and available on: www.amazon.com