I’m always searching for bilingual books with local content so my children can learn the vocabulary that’s associated with their daily lives. I mean, how many books can you find in the market that can effectively teach preschoolers names of items and places found in a typical home and HDB neighbourhoods in Singapore? Places like the community centre, HDB void deck and sports complex are unique to our country and hardly feature in Chinese or English picture books and graded readers for preschoolers.

So when Read With Me Mommy, a local online Chinese bookstore approached us to do a book review for this made in Singapore book-set, I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Finally! A book my children can identify with:

My Home (我的家) is a set of bilingual books written by local authors, Rayne Ngoi and Cheng Pei Yee, and illustrated by Wang Lu Bo. It comes in a set of 2 books – a picture book and an accompanying activity book. The book follows Jason, an adorable boy who is looking for somebody to play with him (haha, it really is Ben in disguise – always looking for someone to play with!). But everyone at home is just too busy. And so together with his dog, Jason investigates every room in his HDB flat to find a playmate.

I got Ben to review this book with me during one of our once-a-week ‘Chinese Day’…

As we followed Jason through each room as he sought a playmate (and Ben seeing so much of him in the book as Jason, hurhurhur), we started discovering the many items and places that were all too familiar to us – places like the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room, the void deck and the HDB-neightbourhood playground.

And so we learned how to name items and places in both English and Chinese while enjoying the story (written like a poem) with vivid illustrations that were oh-so-very engaging. Ben particularly enjoyed lifting the many little flaps in this 40-page book which is beautifully illustrated.

The bilingual activity book complements the picture book and is specially written for children aged 2 to 6. The activity book contains vocabulary practices, hanyu pinyin learning aids, picture cards, interactive games, DIY handicraft, and sticker matching activities to make the process of learning fun and enjoyable. Here’s a sneak peek of some pages in the activity book:

This book-set is such a wonderful resource for keeps, and I would definitely introduce both the picture and activity books to the younger ones as soon as they are ready. The gem of a book retails at Read With Me Mommy for SGD$32 and is great to be read again and again especially with those  flaps that would keep little hands busy!

And I have a giveaway here on the blog!

I have 5 book-sets of My Home (我的家) to give away to 5 readers! To qualify for the random draw, all that’s needed is FOUR SIMPLE STEPS:

1) Like Read With Me Mommy on Facebook

2) Like Zenru Publishing on Facebook

3) Like Motherkao on Facebook (if you haven’t already done so)

4) Leave me a comment here telling me who you’d like to win the book-set for

Giveaway closes on 20 Feb and winners will be randomly picked and announced on the blog.

Do also check out Read With Me Mommy for more Chinese and bilingual titles!

And the winners are…

Congratulations! I hope the people you’d like to win this book set for would have a smashing time reading!