This book is about a girl and her pet dragon. Even though the book has a underlying story, the author uses the story line to share the Chinese culture and language with his readers. The book is for a younger classroom but is a great introduction to the Chinese language and some of their characters (letters). Although this book is very basic, I still feel like it is a good one for the classroom because of it discussing other cultures and customs. ( )

The Pet Dragon is a short story that talks about a young Chinese girl named, Lin, and how one day she received a pet dragon in the mail who became her friend. Lin and her Dragon spent the whole day together playing games and going on adventures until they got in trouble. Lin's Father made Lin put the dragon in a cage, but when she got up the next morning, the dragon was gone! So the rest of the book is about how Lin went on a search for her dragon everywhere. Within the book, you can see along the bottom of each page, Chinese characters of different words used in the story, but the characters are also incorporated within the illustrations of the book. Having something like this in the classroom can be another learning experience in that other languages have a different form of writing and it is also a cute story to read. ( )

I really like this book because it is bilingual and it does a fabulous job of integrating the Chinese characters into the illustrations. It makes it easier to explain how the Chinese built their language and that it has meaning.

This picture book is set in China with a young boy who befriends a dragon, and later becomes a pet. One day the dragon was placed inside of its cage but when the boy went to go look for it he found the cage open. This sets our story into motion with our main character traveling all across China to rescue his friend. In the end, the story ends with the young boy discovering his dragon, fully grown, in a nest with dragons that look just like him. The two were able to find another once more, and helps with the narrative that friendship prevails all. While we read the story there a Chinese characters along each page that relates to what is going on the page. To help the reader even further the illustrations are placed on characters, and displayed on objects that correlates with the word. The intended audience is younger students, but this can open a student's perspective on language. It's always nice to know a few words in a different language. This can also be a great way to have a discussion over how hard it is to learn a second language! This is an important aspect that all English classes should tough in an indirect way. ( )

I really loved reading this book. I thought it was such a fun read. I liked this book for two reasons. The first reason is, I loved the cover page of the book. The cover pages had Chinese characters and what they mean. For example, it showed the Chinese characters for the words "sky, friend, dog, and sheep". I also liked the story because, of the illustrations in the book. All of the illustrations have Chinese characters incorporated in them, then at the bottom it shows you what they mean. For example, the dog has a Chinese word in his face and below the god it says that the character means dog. The lesson or purpose of the story is the help children learn Chinese characters. ( )