A Red Packet of Books!
贺新年~♪ 祝新年~♪
Contents
There’s a whole plethora of delightfully bright and beautiful books all about the Lunar New Year and how it’s celebrated. To get you started, here’s a quick look at books and book sets that feature Lunar New Year in some form or another! You can click on the links for each title to see where you might be able to purchase or find out more information about and we’re adding links to other bloggers’ booklists (see the end!) and recommendations so you have plenty to choose from.
Chinese Lunar New Year Books
Nothing quite says fun and engaging like a pop-up book and we absolutely loved this pop-up book on the Lunar New Year traditions celebrated by this family. Every page has a fun new pop-up that invites children to interact with the story like no other book can! You can take a closer look at it in our review.
Our Festivals is a wonderfully concise hardback book that takes you through a year marked by various Chinese festivals and celebrations! The difficulty level is aimed at slightly older children who are more advanced readers but every double page spread is a joy to discover. It also has a beautiful Global Luka reading, so it’s a great addition to a Luka library.
China Memories Series (Set of 12)《中国记忆: 传统节日系列》
Much like Our Festivals, the China Memories Series marks the year with Chinese festivals and celebrations. But instead of condensing it into a single book, each festival has a heartwarming little story that reveals the customs and meanings in each festival! Beautiful illustrations and narratives (with Global Luka readings, too!) help bring to life the Lunar New Year and other festivals!
So This Is A Year! (Set of 12) 《原来这就是二十四节气系列》
This set looks at the year in a more traditional sense… the 24 solar terms! This is a great way to count the days of the year and mark special festivals and observe nature and different games or customs that make that solar term special. There’s a lovely section on the importance of Lunar New Year for inviting in the new year in a positive light and the other festivals that help see in spring!
This is a much-loved book that centres itself on the importance of family at Lunar New Year. A girl looks forward to seeing her father again and they spend some time enjoying the festivities together as a family. It’s a moving and warming story that some could probably empathise with!
Le Le Chinese Graded Learning System 《乐乐文化》
There are 300 different books in the entire Le Le Chinese series and while all the books are only a few pages long, they offer a huge variety and a sure-fire way to help children develop a strong base in their vocabulary. Every book is compatible with their Le Le Reading Pen, which is point-to-read and honestly incredible and invaluable to our home learning. These two are from the ‘Intermediate’ series and feature a short page each on the New Year and also cover other festivals.
(UPDATE 14/07/2021 14:30: We are a Le Le Chinese Affiliate, which means that you get a 5% discount when you use ‘LELEDEZIREMI’ and a little bit of your purchase will support this blog and the day-to-day running of the bookshop!)
Greenfield ‘I Can Read’ Graded Learning System (in Simplified and Traditional Chinese)
The Greenfield ‘I Can Read’ series is much like Le Le Chinese in that it provides a huge variety of short and sweet books that are tailored to introduce vocabulary to your children. Look out for the books in the pictures, because they have a Lunar New Year twinge! Some of the books are also about Spring or welcoming Spring so they’re quite relevant to the idea of the ‘Spring Festival’, too.
Indie Authors' Lunar New Year Books
Tastes of Lunar New Year by Big Cities Little Foodies
Big Cities Little Foodies never fail to make delightful little books about my favourite topic: food! We hope you’ll be able to enjoy the Lunar New Year with some Chinese food but don’t forget you can travel to these 12 destinations to sample these 12 dishes, too! Let your imagination take you and your kid on the journey! (We’re selling both the English version and the Traditional Chinese-English version.)
Photo credits to Big Cities Little Foodies (Cheryl and Annabel)!
Who doesn’t love a cute little Bitty Bao book? These books are chunky and chewable… plus, bilingual (Chinese-English)! Just as they said on their website, Lacey and Lulu are commited to creating ‘high-quality, engaging, and culturally relevant Chinese bilingual books for all families’. Focusing in on a few elements of Chinese culture, these are really special additions to any library!
Photo credits go to Bitty Bao (Lacey and Lulu)!
English Lunar New Year Books
Any Disney lovers out there reading this? Well, if you didn’t know about this book then where have you been?! Haha - just kidding! But tiny Mulan and her parents are really rather adorable and I love seeing all the hustle-bustle of LNY!
(Please note that we are part of the Amazon Affiliate scheme, so the link above will help support this website should you choose to purchase Mulan’s Lunar New Year with our recommendation!)
We hope you enjoyed reading this and looking at the booklist! It’s quite short so we’d love to hear and see your recommendations, too! Don’t forget to check out other bloggers’ lists of Lunar New Year books because they also have a wide range of interesting titles! You will surely not be out of choice this year!
Chalk Academy: an awesome list of Spring Festival books that you can read and listen to!
@ourbooklovingfamily (Insta): will be sharing some LNY book posts!
@pockets.of.wonder (Insta): has been sharing some LNY books!
@littleboxofshu (Insta): has a LNY Reads story highlight!
@littlekidreads (Insta): has been sharing New Year books, too!
Claudia Lee Kimura: paired some bilingual books with her origami activity!
Drop a comment below to tell us what we missed out and what you’d love to see stocked in the UK! And, as always, follow us on Instagram and Facebook and sign up to our newsletter!