The Frog in the Well

Educational with Beautiful Illustration

Children and adults are sure to appreciate the valuable lesson taught by this book. Irene Tsai does a fabulous job at bringing two different cultures together to help explain something we both have in common.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Excellent illustrations make the story come alive!

The 'Frog in the Well' is a Chinese-English bilingual book that is filled with excellent illustrations and graphics that will make reading fun for your child. As a teacher with over 20 year's experience, I highly recommend this book.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Well done

Good story, great graphics to keep a child's attention. Very well done.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

interesting and fun story

The title of this Chinese-English bilingual book is a Chinese idiom. Chinese idioms, which are frequently used in the Chinese language, usually consist of four characters and tells a story based on folklore, myth, historical fact. There is also a moral teaching demonstrated. In this story, a frog hops into a well and thinks that because he knows everything in the well he is the smartest frog in the world. Then he meets a turtle from the sea and learns that there is a bigger world outside of the well. Thus, 'the frog in the well' describes a narrow-minded person who thinks he knows a lot but really does not. This is an interesting and fun story on its own for children to read, but there is an added benefit for parents who are interested in having their children exposed to the Chinese language. The story is not only told in English, but it is also written in Chinese, as translated by Joyce Lin, with both traditional and simplified characters, along with Pinyin, a phonetic notation that uses the Roman alphabet to represent sounds in Mardarin Chinese, and Zhu Yin Fu Hao, another phonetic notation for learning to read, write, and speak Mandarin. If you want your children to learn more about China and its culture, you should find this book very useful.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

The Frog in the Well

The Frog in the Well is a delightful and beautifully illustrated book that is an introduction to Chinese culture, language and characters, and values. It is appealing on many levels. The visual text is an integrated whole that has a life of its own and can be explored for types of plants and creatures and different perspectives on life, as is appropriate to the book's message. As someone with no familiarity with spoken Chinese, I eagerly await the soon to be released DVD, which will expand my appreciation of the book even further.

Tordis Ilg Isselhardt
Publisher
Images from the Past

Excellent for Introducing Chinese Language to Children

Young children learn foreign languages easily. This early reader book tells a Chinese fable and is a good story to read aloud to all young children because of its beautiful illustrations. The Chinese symbols are a curiosity but have little meaning to non-Chinese speaking children unless specifically pointed out and explained. It is most useful if taught by someone knowledgeable of Chinese. It could be a useful tool for a bi-lingual teacher on several grade levels.

Great bilingual book!

The frog in the well is a simple story yet it has a great message. The illustrations are more than wonderful and the bi-lingual aspect of the book is not readily available in such a sweet form. Children get to read the story in two different languages and enjoy learning them.

Children's Chinese-English bilingual book

THE FROG IN THE WELL
Irene Y. Tsai, Ph. D.


A Moral Teaching


Irene Y. Tsai retells a beautiful story (Chinese idiom) about "THE FROG IN THE WELL." Children will love the beautiful illustrations by Pattie Caprio as they turn each page. As the story unfolds, the frog is visited by a sea turtle who shares valuable wisdom with the frog.

Joyce Lin translates in traditional and simplified Chinese characters, along with Zhu Yin Fu Hao and Pinyin, which are systems of phonetic notations to assist in reading, writing and speaking Mandarin.

Parents, teachers, librarians - the moral teaching alone is worth the price of the book. The translations to Chinese along with the beautiful illustrations are an added incentive that will assist acquiring a greater knowledge in communication, making this world a greater place.

Irene Y. Tsai receives Donley's Five Star W.O.W (Words of Wisdom) Award.


Brian J. Donley
Author, The Original Psychology of Success

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