Customer Reviews

D is for Doufu: An Alphabet Book of Chinese Culture

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
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When I first leafed through this book I could not put it down because it is such a rich visual treat. Each page contains a luminous collage of paintings, calligraphy and graphics through which we are introduced to some of the many artifacts and traditions of the Chinese culture. Some words such as "gong fu," "feng shui," and "doufu" are already quite familiar to westerners. Less familiar but equally important are words such as "hong bao" (lucky red envelopes which all children receive for Chinese New Year), "qi pao" (the elegant high collared dresses worn by Chinese women),"shi er sheng xiao" (12 animals of the Chinese zodiac), "tu zhang" (hand carved seals bearing a person's name) and "xiao shun" (the words for filial piety, much emphasized in the teachings of Confucius). The pages are large and the graphics bold, making it a suitable book for sharing with a class. This is a book which visual artists, scholars, teachers and children alike will surely appreciate.

I expected a Read-aloud book for use in the classroom but this book is more for individual use as a resource for the Mandarin language. If I had a classroom set it would be great to let the students explore and then assign each a word and character to teach to the rest of the class. I would have preferred the pronunciation to be included with the word on each page. On the other hand, as a teaching resource the book is a good source of background information for me since I have little or no knowledge about the Chinese language. It has a succinct explanation of the sounds and tonality used in Mandarin and also explains the composition of the characters for specific words. For example, the character for "love" contains the characters BREATH, HEART, and MOVEMENT: "Love breathes life into the heart and brings grace to the body". The illustrations are beautiful and the text very informative. Although I will not end up using this book as I intended when I ordered it I still feel it will have value to me for teaching and learning about China.

I hope that others will discover this book too. I am going to share it with my ESOL students for Chinese New Year. I am learning a lot from the book. I really enjoy trying to pronounce the words. My Chinese-Vietnamese students can probably assist me with the correct pronunciation and tones, now that I have some idea.

This is a great book to learn more about Chinese cultures. Adults would find it more interesting than children. The text and concepts are sometimes higher than your average primary age child. The pictures are artistic, but not exactly kid appeal. Good resource for learning; it doesn't get picked up for leisure reading by kids. I have this book in my school library collection.

This book came to me quickly. Has beautiful paintings and interesting things about the culture. Worth my purchasing. Thanks!