Review of Gordon & Li Li Learn Animals in Mandarin

Gordon & Li Li Learn Animals in Mandarin, by Michele Wong McSween, illustrated by Nam Doan.  McWong Ink, 2010.   $9.99  ISBN 978-0-9820881-2-8

Michele Wong McSween's bright and colorful "Gordon & Li Li" board books are simple enough to be enjoyed by the youngest babies but will also hold the attention of active preschoolers.  

The first book, Gordon & Li Li: Words for Everyday, was illustrated by Kevin Murawski, who has also done some "Harold and the Purple Crayon" board-book spinoffs.  In that book McSween introduced Gordon & Li Li, blue and pink panda cousins who live in Brooklyn, New York, and Beijing, China, respectively.  Each page featured a simple, straightforward drawing of one or both pandas posing with an everyday object.  The English word was printed at the top of the page and the Chinese word in pinyin transcription at the bottom.  The words chosen ranged from "ball" to "bath" to "apple" to "shoes" to "cell phone," and a couple of phrases--"Good job!" and "See you next time!" were introduced at the end of the book.  Altogether, 26 words and phrases were included, which seems to be a perfect number to fit the attention span of a busy toddler and to allow both child and parents to remember everything with repeated readings. 

McSween's brand-new sequel, Gordon & Li Li Learn Animals in Mandarin, released on March 1 of this year, is even more charming and better conceptualized than the first book.  The new illustrator, Nam Doan, has added an element of humor to the pictures that leaves my nearly-four-year-old son rolling in the aisles time after time.  Instead of merely posing smilingly in each illustration, Gordon & Li Li are active and have more personality in this book.  Li Li squats on a lily pad with the frog, charms the snake, and waddles with the chicken, while Gordon leads a family of ducklings on a walk, sunbathes with an alligator, and chews a blade of grass with a cow.  

The text, still limited to one word per page, is also more useful to Chinese-language learners in this new book.  As well as the English and pinyin versions of each word, the author has included simplified characters (the words range from one to three characters each) and an English-based phonetic transcription of the Mandarin pronunciation.  For someone like me who is trying to learn Chinese characters and teach them to my children, I was very grateful to have both the pinyin and characters for each word.  The English phonetic transcription is not necessary for my purposes, but they may be helpful to readers who are not familiar with the conventions of pinyin, including even some native speakers of Chinese dialects, such as my husband, who does not remember how to read characters and never learned pinyin as a child.

Young children will be charmed by the bold, bright colors and amusing images of this book and will ask to read it again and again.  It is simple enough that, after a few readings, they will be able to start supplying the Chinese words themselves and to feel a sense of pride at having learned some real Chinese, which will motivate them to learn more and to develop their tolerance for longer, more complicated Chinese-language or bilingual books.  Recommended for ages 0-6.