Last Updated on October 18, 2023 by Bilingual Kidspot
Best Chinese Books to Read With Luka Hero
If you haven’t heard of it already, Luka Hero is the reading robot that reads English and Chinese books for kids. You can see the full review of Luka to read more about it.
Luka reading robot reads >70,000 books, so there’s a lot of choice. It is one of our favourite recourses for helping kids learn Chinese.
But how do you know if a book is great or not?
Difficulties in finding Chinese Books for Kids
Some difficulties for non-native families in navigating Chinese children’s literature can be:
- Some books are translated poorly from another language (e.g. the rhymes written in English don’t carry through into the Chinese version)
- Many of the Chinese authored books are not as fun or imaginative as typical Western children’s literature, or they focus on moral values and classical Chinese history, which a family living outside of mainland China may not relate to
- It can be hard to google / search for reviews about Chinese children’s books, especially if you want to read the information in English
Chinese Books for Kids – Luka Reading Robot
This post is to set you up on the right track with some winning book ideas to get your started with your Luka Hero. Below you can find:
- Best Chinese books for Luka Hero reading robot for young kids
- Best Chinese books for Luka Hero reading robot for older kids or more fluent Chinese speakers
- Tips for reading with Luka Hero reading robot
Chinese books to read with Luka Hero for a younger child
For younger children, choose books which they may already be familiar with in English. In fact, Luka often can read your existing English books in Chinese, which will save you needing to buy more.
Some great authors to consider: (Click on the links below)
- Eric Carle classics: Hungry Caterpillar, Spider’s Busy Day, Draw Me a Star, Where are You Going? etc.:
Simple, repetitive words, short story lines. - Guess How Much I Love You series by Sam McBratney: Guess how much I love you, It’s lovely when you smile, You are all my favourites, etc.:
Meaningful stories about the love of a parent and family values. - Todd Parr books: Family series, The Peace Book, Todd’s World series, It’s Okay to Be Different, The I’m Not Scared Book, Courage & Strength series, etc:
Uplifting and confidence building books, celebrating diversity of faces and place, with bright pictures and a dose of humour - Herve Tullet classics: Dots, Change, Little Yellow Dot
Award winning author, with simple illustrations, to inspire creativity - Mo Willems series: Pigeon on School bus series, Elephant & Piggie Series, Cat the cat, who is that? Leonardo, the terrible monster and many more.
Mo Willems was a script writer for iconic children’s show Sesame Street, and puts an emphasis on education and early literacy into his writing.
Other great book series for a younger child:
- Dear Zoo series– by Rod Campbell
- Llama Llama series – by Anna Dewdney
- Harry the Dirty Dog series – by Gene Zion
- Curious George Curious series – by Margret Rey & H.A. Rey
- Elmer the Elephant series – by David McKee
- Madeline series – by Ludwig Bemelmans
Chinese books to read with Luka Hero for older kids
For older children or more fluent Chinese speakers – choose books with engaging storylines and detailed pictures, and perhaps even stories which aren’t translated into English, to give them an extra incentive to want to read in Chinese. Some ideas:
- Taro Gomi (五味太郎): 海的那边是什么 小金鱼逃走了 (Little Goldfish Escaped), 牛的春天 (Spring of the Mavericks), 冰激凌是谁吃的 (Who Ate The Ice Cream?), 藏猫猫 藏猫猫 (Tibetan Cat), 袜子藏哪儿了 (Where Are The Socks Hidden?) and plenty more
Originally written in Japanese, and translated into Chinese - Toshio Iwai (岩井俊雄): 地下100层的房子 (House of 100 Storeys series) Originally written in Japanese, and translated into Chinese
- Christian Jolibois: 不一样的卡梅拉 : 珍藏版, 我是罗密欧. 我给巨人做饭 ,etc (Les P’Tites Poules series)
Originally written in French, with about 30 of the books from this series translated into Chinese - Lai Ma (赖马) : 勇敢小火车 (Brave Little Train); 卡尔的特别任务 (Carl’s Special Mission) , 爱哭公主, 生气王子 ( The Angry Prince), 我变成一只喷火龙了 (I am a fire breathing dragon), and plenty plenty more
Lai Ma is an award winning Chinese children’s author - Miyanishi Tatsuya (宫西达也): 好饿的小蛇 (The little hungry snake); 你看起来好像很好吃 (T Rex series), Virtue series, 哒哒哒爸爸超人
These books were all originally written in Japanese, and translated into Chinese. Some have been translated into English, but not all.
Tips for reading books with Luka Hero
- The easiest way is to work out whether a book is compatible, is that you can scan the book barcode/ISBN.
- Always check out the book in the app library, as there may be different versions of the books available to listen to (eg male or female readers, or some which enable child interaction, or those which narrate the story rather than simply reading the text, etc)
- For many books, you can toggle between the Chinese and the English version by tapping Luka’s forehead. This is great way to reinforce the learning, and read page-by-page in each language.
Luka Reading Robot For Bilingual Kids
Hopefully this posts gives you some ideas on the types of books you can read with Luka Hero reading robot for kids. For more information on the Luka Reading Robot check out our Luka Reading Robot Review.
Raising bilingual kids in English and Chinese? See our Learn Chinese for Kids FREE lessons and resources. Also make sure to check out our community groups on Facebook.
Author: Emma Lee is a mother of 3 living in Singapore, bringing an engineer’s skillset to her bilingual parenting. Her website has detailed reviews on literary tech gadgets & books to assist children learning Chinese.
*This post contains Amazon affiliate links at no cost to you. See our full disclosure on the home page.
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