Preschool Reads:《可爱的鼠小弟》Little Mouse Series

This Japanese-translated bestseller was recommended to me by a friend and I bought it not expecting much. I looked at a few sample pages online and it didn’t seem that special…

But, she was right and I was wrong. I LOVE THIS SERIES. ❤️❤️❤️

The first thing I should tell you is that you should buy the entire series (22 books). Or at least buy the first set of 12 books. Each book is a stand-alone story but there are many running gags:

E.g.

Book 1: 鼠小弟的小背心 Little Mouse’s Vest

Book 3: 鼠小弟的又一件小背心 Little Mouse’s Other Vest

Book 6: 又来了！鼠小弟的小背心 Little Mouse’s Vest Again!

The stories just keep getting funnier and funnier because you know the backstory of Little Mouse’s vest. It may not make as much sense if you don’t read the books in order.

The illustrations are soooooo cute and there’s a hilarious twist on the last page of each book. This series reminds me very much of Mo Willem’s Elephant & Piggie series in terms of style and content.

The other thing I really like about Little Mouse is the vocabulary/Chinese characters are easy and repetitive. Little Man knows about 400 Chinese characters and can read most of the sentences. I think that this will be a great set for him to practice reading to gain confidence and fluency.

As you can see in the sample pages above, the lines are repetitive for most of the book “小背心真漂亮，让我穿穿好吗?” and “有点紧，不过挺好看的吧?”. This makes it really easy to understand and read, ideal for beginning Chinese learners and readers!

This series is very popular and you may be able to find it at a local Chinese library if you have one. I found eleven of them at my immersion school library:

Buy from: I purchased set of 22 paperbacks from Taobao (China based) for $30. See How to Buy Books from Taobao

Also available on China Sprout (U.S. based).

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