I just received my copy of Calvin Celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival in the mail. I love that it is a bilingual spoken Cantonese and English book.
When I was growing up there wasn’t any Cantonese picture books. I learned Cantonese on Saturdays and it was so boring and difficult to learn.
I would write my own pronunciations to help me remember how to pronounce the Chinese characters. Too bad they never taught us Jyutping.
Readers of this colorful picture book can use the Jyutping to help them learn Cantonese. Readers can also access the audio online if they need help with pronunciation.
Calvin celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival with Red Panda and Dragon. I love those two characters.
What I really love about this book is the color coding of the vocabulary words. It makes learning and recognizing phrases so much easier.
In Chinese there isn’t a space between characters. That means learners have trouble knowing where one phrase ends and another phrase begins. The color coding makes recognizing the phrases so much easier.
Another fun feature is the look and find pictures with vocabulary. Readers will also enjoy searching for Calvin’s dinosaur throughout the book. The page with all the different kinds of mooncakes is the best. Now I’ll know what kind of mooncake to get the next time I go to the store.
The back matter includes the history of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the story of Chang’E, and a Cantonese pronunciation guide.
If you’re ready to get your own copy of your book, you can check it out at greencowsbooks.com.