Review: 紅豆綠豆碰 Comic Books with read-aloud CD

It was love at first sight with these comic books when I saw them last Fall on another blog. At that time, we were 100% Simplified but I knew I had to get these even though they are in Traditional Chinese.

Why we love them

#1. KIDS LOVE COMICS!!!! If you want to get your kid interested and excited about Chinese, here’s a tip: comics!

#2. Each book has 30-40 stories of 4 pages each. Each story takes only a few minutes to read so it’s great for when you have just a few minutes to spare or short attention spans.

#3. Stories are easy to understand – kids can also use the picture cues to figure out meanings of new vocabulary.

#4. They are healthy and educational – each book has a different theme such as protecting the earth, how to be a good friend, learning is fun, etc. My son has learned so much vocabulary and general knowledge, e.g. what to do in an earthquake.

#5. MP3 CD!!!! You can listen to the audio without the book because the narrator sets the scene and they have different voices to act it out. It’s amazing quality and really fun to listen to. My son surprises me with the Taiwanese phrases he picked up like “我就說嘛!” and “看我的厲害!” Sooooo funny.

If you have a C-Pen, you can easily transfer the MP3 to make your comic books read aloud. This is particularly awesome for non-Chinese speaking parents {Read more about how we use C-Pen}

#6. Affordable price – these are going for just $7.95 USD each. Considering how he loves it and listens repeatedly, I definitely got my money’s worth!

#7. They are a nice bridge to Kang Xuan Top945 Learning Magazine. Many of you are familiar with Top945 magazine which is one of the top children’s magazines in Taiwan with excellent informative articles. However, kids may find it difficult to read this magazine and/or may not be interested.

For me, I used 紅豆綠豆碰 comic books first to hook my kid’s interest before introducing the more difficult 康軒學習雜誌 Top945 Learning magazines. Because my son was already familiar with the Red Bean, Green Bean characters (same voices for audio CDs as well), he was immediately drawn to the magazines even though it is challenging for him.

Where to Buy

For U.S. customers, C-Stems is selling them for $7.95 each! This is lower than competitors’ pricing.

I find all of them to be pretty similar so choose them based on your child’s interest or your own preference, e.g. To focus more on social skills, get the book “交朋友好好玩”. If you want to read more on Chinese New Year, get “沒有紅包的新年”, etc.