Book Review: So This Is A Year!
Discovering the joys of life and culture across a year!
Let's read together!
A series for every season
Literally. Every. Season. This book follows a year in a life by observing the 24 solar terms! When agriculture and farming was the main occupation and livelihood for most families, the solar terms were used to determine when to sow and harvest and to count down days to special festivals like Winter Solstice! What we really love about this book is that it’s a simple series that lasts all year long!
From spring to winter! There’s a book for every month of the Gregorian calendar!
Gorgeous illustrations
And they’re proportional and somewhat realistic, too! The people, the flowers, the animals all look beautiful in this style. Yes - it still has that cartoon quality to it, but for those who really want this to reflect a real year in a life, you could do worse. It might not be using true-to-life diagrams and sketches or photographs, but we still deem to this be quite suitable for early development - perhaps some would even say it’s Montessori-friendly material!
Each illustration doesn’t fail to please! There are detailed drawings on different activities and festivals, foods and scenery, plants and animals.
But probably not for the littler ones…
Mainly because the series are actually quite difficult to read with its more advanced vocabulary and longer sentences, varied punctuation and longer paragraphs… It’s really wonderful non-fiction and it goes through the events of a year by roughly following a sibling pair growing up in a rural area. So don’t get me wrong, this is quite engaging, but probably not for babies or toddlers. We’d recommend this set for older children who already have a strong foundation in Mandarin and can use this foundation to focus on learning and absorbing the new material about history, customs, festivals, nature etc. I mean, take a look at this example page.
The text can be a little tricky in parts….
What can I do if I can’t read it myself?
Well, don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world! This series is actually compatible with Luka (global version) so it might be useful for households who aren’t necessarily fluent in Chinese but would still like to use this as a way to discover more about the culture and about solar terms.
If you don’t have a Luka, the text uses very standard font and the size actually lends itself well to using a translation app on your phone or a translation pen (psst! coming soon…).
I’m not particularly good at reading Chinese myself (GCSE-level speaking here…), but I’m always trying to improve despite my rather mediocre skill in language-learning! While I find some parts of this book quite difficult, it’s nothing a little training and a dictionary app couldn’t help with.
Bringing the book to life
Food, festivals and fun. What more could you want?
Seriously. This series covers a lot considering how compact and condensed the books are. While you could argue that you’d prefer each custom or festival or food be really fleshed out and all, you also don’t want to do an information dump on kids. That’d just be boring.
What we really love about these books is how it balances breadth and depth to try and cover the solar terms in bite-sized little pieces. Each book encourages us to apply the words and information to real-life scenario. You’ll see these instances of ‘three periods’ in a solar term where there’d be different things to observe in the environment or nature or within culture, custom or community.
There are also different seasonal foods and, if you don’t know yet, I absolutely adore food. I’d make the same expression if I were also presented with such a delicious array of dishes!
Take note!
I mean literally. The book asks you to make notes. Each book has one page which asks you to note down the year you’re observing the solar term and the date of observation for a solar term. Kids can also practise measuring temperature as a regular activity throughout the year. We think it’s a good way to get kids used to being aware of their environment by looking at forecasts, probes or calendars!
Other thoughts...
A question: how careful are your kids with books?
If your answer is “not at all”, then maybe find a more robust series. On the product page, I described the books in the series as ‘booklets’ because that’s what they are. They’re very short (about 14 pages each) and the paper is quite thin. To make a comparison, I’d say it’s like a kid’s magazine.
Short books, thin magazine-like pages - so watch out for those book chewers!
I would assume the reason for this choice in paper thickness would be down to the target demographic. This isn’t really aimed at babies and toddlers so it isn’t really designed to withstand chewing and tearing. But here’s what I think, if your child’s old enough or at an advanced enough level that you’re still reading this part of the review, then the quality of the paper shouldn’t be a problem!
But it’s not completely flimsy!
The covers are made from card - so it’s still got some structure and doesn’t flop around all over place despite the magazine-like pages. The cover also has a water-repellent gloss coating for those splashes you can quickly wipe away without destroying the book.
Print quality of the images and the text are consistently good across all the books we’ve seen so far. The colours are lovely, the lines don’t fray and, despite the thin pages, the ink doesn’t bleed through the page.
Consistently excellent print quality and a little water-repellent coating for the cover for small accidental splashes
Conclusion
Non-fiction is great. Books that can last for a whole year are also great. This series simply combines the two! Every book makes every solar term a delight to discover. It helps children engage with the world they live in by asking them to make observations and seasonal changes and incorporates that with festivals and celebrations, customs and culture. It’s actually delivered in a such a format that even adults (including me!) can enjoy, too. Just be mindful when around babies and toddlers!
If you enjoyed this review, don’t forget to share it with a friend or family member so they know about it, too! Maybe they’re looking for something that helps children observe nature throughout the year. Or maybe they want to learn a bit more about solar terms. We’d love to hear what you have to say about this, too, so drop a comment below or talk to us on social media.
Those living in the UK or Euorpe can also purchase this set from our shop here!
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See you around!