The Pet Dragon, by Christoph Niemann -- wonderful illustrated kids' book

I linked to Christoph Niemann's New York Times blog late last year. He's a delightful illustrator who creates art in an appealing, simple style that I love so much.

His new book, The Pet Dragon: A Story about Adventure, Friendship, and Chinese Characters, is the story of a little girl who gets a baby dragon, then loses it and goes looking for it. As you can see on the cover, Chinese characters are cleverly placed over some of the things. After reading to book to my 5-year-old, we got to the back inside cover, which contains all the characters presented in the book, and I asked her the meaning of each one (there are about 30 in all). She knew at least half of them. What a fun way to learn the written Chinese language!

The Pet Dragon, by Christoph Niemann

[#1 posted by Lucifer, January 14, 2009 2:37 PM]

reminds me of the premise for the 2003 children's book "How to Train your Dragon" written by Cressida Cowell.

[#2 posted by Roy Trumbull, January 14, 2009 4:32 PM]

Please read "The Book of Dragons" by Edith Nesbit which is available at www.gutenberg.com . Her stories were for kids but had built in jokes for the parents doing the reading. Where else would you find a dragon that had a preference for eating Prime Ministers?

[#3 posted by Daemon, January 14, 2009 6:41 PM]

The webcomic Sinfest does something similar on occasion, though it's not quite as child-friendly.

[#4 posted by aeon, January 14, 2009 10:47 PM]

It's beautifully illustrated. If it was bilingual English-Chinese with a pinyin pronunciation guide for the characters introduced, I'd buy one in a flash. As it is it's pretty, but not useful in a bilingual learning environment.

[#5 posted by stuckinkiel, January 15, 2009 1:22 AM]

I agree with Aeon (#4). The lack of pinyin is the reason I won't get this book. If I got it as a gift, I would add the pinyin in pencil.

[#6 posted by postliteracy_dot_org, January 15, 2009 7:49 AM]

Visual stealth learning FTW.

[#7 posted by Joris Landman, January 15, 2009 8:18 AM]

我觉得那个小人书太可爱。

[#8 posted by aeon, January 15, 2009 10:45 AM]

#7 I agree, it's very cute. But the lack of Chinese narrative text kills it for us. Maybe in the 2nd Edition? I'd buy it then.

Also 小人 doesn't mean what you may naturally assume it to mean - you might look it up in a dictionary? 小孩 would be better. Unless you meant the author?! :-(

[#9 posted by Anonymous, January 15, 2009 11:36 AM]

This book was a huge disappointment for us. Despite our initial excitement over the concept, we found the storyline to be completely inappropriate for adopted children.

Considering that this book would likely, on the surface, appeal to families with children adopted from China, the storyline about the dragon deciding he would rather be with his 'real' family was an unfortunate surprise.

[#10 posted by Namdnal Siroj, May 4, 2009 7:11 AM]

@aeon:

http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/小人书/46520