Customer Reviews

At the Beach

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Lee, a native of Cambodia, creates a children's book that explains some Chinese language characters, characters that look like what they mean. Xiao Ming and his mother go to the beach, where Xiao Ming likes to draw Chinese characters in the sand with a stick. Xiao Ming and the reader learn 10 characters. One character is introduced per double page. They are drawn and explained, and for each character, the illustration matches the character. "Person", for example (ren/wren), looks like a person walking down a beach, right foot leading one's left. "Big", (da/dah), looks like person but with an additional horizontal line, or a person on his back with outstretched arms and legs (and thus the illustration of a person lying in the sand). The word for "sky" follows later. It adds another horizontal line to person and big, as if something is sheltering the person. Seven other words are learned ending with "Good" (hao/how), which looks remarkably like a mother holding her child at the beach. Mandarin pronunciations are used.

my daughter from China and I love all the books written by this author. This is the best one and we share it with anyone who visits us at the beach. We practice making Chinese symbols in the sand ourselves.

By drawing pictures in the sand a mother teachers her young son how to write Chinese characters. This is a marvelous idea, reminding us how thousands of years ago Chinese people took sticks and scratched pictures in the mud, thus inventing the very first Chinese characters. In this book we learn how to draw the characters for the words "person," "big," "small,""sky,""water," "mountain," "sand," "woman," "child" and "good." Through beautiful cut paper illustrations we can easily see the similarities between characters and real life objects. Huy Voun Lee is the talented writer and illustrator of two other books in this series - "In the Park" and "In the Snow." I highly recommend all three.

At the Beach is a picture book, which teaches children how to write ten Chinese characters; they are as follows: person, big, small, sky, water, mountain, sand, woman, child, and good. Author/illustrator Lee uses the medium of collage and construction to illustrate his book. The book will appeal to children as it is set on the beach, and tells the story of a little boy whose mother is teaching him to write Chinese. The little boy, Xiao Ming, draws the Chinese characters in the sand with a stick. Children can relate to Xiao if they have ever been to a beach, for surely they have drawn in the sand.

The author/illustrator skillfully gives the reader a way in which to remember the Chinese characters for the English words, "person, big, small, sky, water, mountain, sand, woman, child, and good." Little Xiao remembers the character for "person" because it looks like a person walking. Lee then shows a person walking on the beach, and indeed, it does resemble the Chinese character for "person!" Then, Xiao says that the character for the word, "big" looks like a person stretching out his arms and legs. The character for "small," on the other hand, looks like someone with his head bowed and arms at his sides. Lee continues the story in this manner, giving a logical connection to a Chinese character and what it describes, by providing illustrations.

The illustrations are colorful and full of activity. Although Lee uses only colored paper and no shading of any kind, the illustrations appear to be three-dimensional and realistic due to his careful attention to detail.

A book that I've been searching for, AT THE BEACH teaches young children about the beauty and meaning of 10 Chinese written words - the easier, frequently used ones - all of them under seven lines that comes with pinyin pronunciation notes so kids can attempt at saying and writing them. Chinese characters are fun and pictographic as the basic words imitate natural objects around us and author Huy Voun Lee using a family's trip to the beach successfully selects ten representative ones and through conversational dialogue with cut-paper collages in summer-themed borders, the kids would learn the logic behind the words' composition. "Ren (person)" shapes like a person walking, "da (big)" looks like a person stretching out, "xiao (small) is a person putting arms down taking a bow, "tien (sky)" simply add one line to the top of "big" because sky is on top of a person and bigger than big, "shui (water) resembles drops of water, "shan (mountain)" is three peaks of mountain put together, "sha (sand)" is a combination of water, little kid and stroke. They are exactly how we will teach our youngsters about these symbols and I especially love the author to include the following three: "nu (woman)" is derived from a mother holding a baby, "zi (child)" symbolizes a child serving his parents and when one puts the two letters (woman & child), the word "hao (good)" is born. The order of how to write these words are not included but the rule of thumb is one writes from top to down and left to right.

My mom always shares with me and now my kids about a story: in ancient times, there lived a very poor family (the father had passed away) that did not have any money to buy any books nor send the child to school. The resourceful mom who learnt how to write from her late husband used a twig and every day she would write words on the sand to teach her child how to read. The poor child grew up to be one of the most respected and knowledgeable scholar in Chinese history. This book echoes with this allusion and makes it remarkably precious to introduce young children to Chinese writing ten characters at a time.

Having recently adopted a beautiful toddler from China, we have purchased all the books by this author to start teaching her (and ourselves) a little Chinese. The author has a lovely style of teaching the pictures behind the pictograms. A great book (as are all by this author)!

I discovered this book before I became a teacher, and read it to my (then) 3 year old daughter. She learned the characters from having us read her the book (at her request) night after night before bed! I love the way the characters are pictured so that children can remember the meanings, for example, standing with arms and legs spread wide to mean big, or "da" and bowed with arms at the side to represent small, or "xiao."

I teach 5 - 7 year old children at Chinese School and I use this book in class to teach the characters and I have the children actually physically "be" the character, and that helps them remember the words much easier! I have the entire series of books by Huy Voun Lee and LOVE them and have incorporated them all into my curriculum.

This book will allow my Chinese-Vietnamese students to share their writing and culture with other students in my class. It allows me to understand the written Chinese language better myself. Excellent!

I got this book as a gift for my Eurasian children and loved it right away. It's educational, fun, and beautifully illustrated. I highly recommend it.

Great for children as well as adults