The Twelve Animals of the Chinese Zodiac (9780804855945)

Twelve Traditional Stories That Children Will Love!

This bilingual children's book presents a charming collection of folktales and fables on the timeless theme of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. All of these stories are very popular in China, retold and adapted here to appeal to young readers and children all around the world. Each story explores a moral dilemma that young readers can easily understand, and provides a gentle lesson that they will discover for themselves.

The twelve stories in this book include:

• "How a Monkey Was Doomed by His Own Pride" A monkey is rescued by a dolphin after a shipwreck but is dumped back into the sea when his pretense of being rich and famous is discovered.
• "What Kind of Music Do Cows Appreciate?" A master musician does not blame the cows when they don't like his music, but instead learns to create music that the cows will appreciate.
• How Do You Make Dragons Come to Life?" An artist obeys the emperor's command to add eyes to his painted dragons, but when the dragons come to life and fly away, it tuns out this was not what the emperor wanted after all.
• And nine other stories!

This book is intended for children 7-12 years. It is for young language learners as well as general readers.


About the Author:
Vivian Ling has enjoyed a long career in Chinese language and literature, teaching at Oberlin College and Indiana University, and directing Chinese language programs abroad in Taipei, Shanghai, Kunming and Beijing. She is the author of many books on Chinese language education, including The Field of Chinese Language Education in the U.S.: A Retrospective of the 20th Century. With Peng Wang she has co-authored Essential Mandarin Chinese Grammar, Chinese Stories for Language Learners and A Bilingual Treasury of Chinese Folktales, all published by Tuttle.

Peng Wang has been on the faculty at Georgetown University since 2002, teaching various Chinese language courses including Business Chinese and Chinese for Heritage Learners. Formerly, she was chief instructor at the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies at Tsinghua University, as well as a visiting faculty at Oberlin College and Brown University. She has co-authored three other books with Vivian Ling: Essential Mandarin Chinese Grammar, Chinese Stories for Language Learners and A Bilingual Treasury of Chinese Folktales, all published by Tuttle.

Yang Xi is an artist and illustrator combines classical and contemporary styles. She holds an MA from the College of Fine Arts at Nanjing Art Institute. While specializing in illustrations related to Chinese culture, she has an eye toward the sensibilities of an international audience.