Vickie Lee12 Lucky Animals: A Bilingual Baby Book

What we appreciated about this book:1) Board-book format is sturdy, practical.2) Illustrations are colorful, generally cute.3) The zodiac theme is wonderful and culturally enriching.What we found disappointing:1) There's only one Chinese character (alongside its pinyin) per animal. Other than "Xi" (happiness/luck) -- part of the cover illustration -- there are only 12 Chinese characters in this 24-page book, and they're not prominent in size. By contrast, there are 100+ English words (i.e., descriptions of each animal's qualities are in English with no accompanying Chinese). To me this book might appeal as a first exposure to Chinese culture (and animals in general), but not to the Chinese language, contrary to its subtitle as "a bilingual baby book."2) While some illustrations are visually captivating, others are very simple. All have the look of having been digitally composed, not hand-drawn. That's a personal preference, to be sure, but it made a difference to us.More emphasis on presenting Chinese characters as part of the visual experience, and perhaps more evenly captivating illustrations, might have made this book more compelling to our 1+ year old. We ordered this book with a lot of excitement, but it has not become one of the many that our child picks out to reread time after time.Bilingual Mandarin/English board books are hard to come by on Amazon. This book's very existence contributes to a much-needed category, and we're thankful to the author and illustrator for their effort.

This book leaves a lot to be desired - the text is lacking and not really that educational, the Mandarin pinyin is inaccurate and would irk any Chinese speaker, and there isn't a lot to read. Otherwise the board book format is great and a nice attempt at trying to introduce a part of Chinese culture. My toddler likes it enough as the illustrations are cute and I go through the pages with her describing the animals in Chinese. We don't read the text by the author as it's not that engaging for a 2 year old. The illustrations are probably the best part. I ended up returning the book but Amazon let me keep it, so now we have it, otherwise I would have sent it back. Not worth the $.

My 3/4yo loves this book! I use it to help along multilingual education at home (English, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Taishanese). He's not so interested in the traits of each zodiac animal but he loves telling me about what the different animals like to eat and what he knows about them as we go through the book. We read this book by his request nearly every night for weeks now! My only complaint is the page for rooster has the single character 鸡 but the pinyin and pronunciation assistance has gongji. Other than that, awesome book! The illustrations are so adorable, too!

I purchased this book as part of a Mandarin language collection in my public library, specifically for storytime. I showed it to a Mandarin speaker to make sure this was a good, quality book, appropriate for ages 2-5, and the speaker agreed and enjoyed this book. I'm very happy with the results and with the company.

While I like the concept of this book and the artwork is cute it barely has any Chinese. I was hoping the descriptions would include Chinese but only the animal name is in Chinese. In addition many of the animal names are incomplete. For example rabbit is just ‘tu’ in the book instead of ‘tuzi’

It has cute illustrations, that’s about it. I would not call this a bilingual book as the only mandarin in it is the name of each animal, maybe It’s for someone who’s never been exposed to the language before, but not a bilingual toddler.

Excellent...for my friends that speak both Chinese and English. Easy to learn both pronunciations.

It’s a cute book with cute pictures, but the descriptions of the animals is only in English, so the book isn’t truly bilingual

While the book is described as a bilingual book, it’s predominantly English. The only Mandarin are the single animal words. The book also contains pinyin pronunciations for both Mandarin and Cantonese. So more English than Mandarin. I was a bit disappointed.

There are a few of Chinese characters, but I think it is not enough Chinese words for the people who wants to learn Chinese. However, it is still a good book to read.

Sturdy board book to introduce the Chinese Zodiac animals to your baby or toddler. Only the name of the animal is in Chinese. There is Pinyin and the English name of the animal followed by a short description of typical 'character traits' of the animal in English.

Mi piacciono tantissimo i libri per bambini ed è raro vedere qualcosa legato al mondo dell'oriente. Mi piace lo stile di Joey Chou, in quanto semplice e colorato.

family loved it.