Find the Book!

In Singapore, National Library Board (NLB) holds a very good collection of children's book and they can be borrowed free. Otherwise, good English book can be purchased locally, eg Borders, Kinukuniya, or online Kinukuniya BookWeb, or the good old Amazon.com (some forwarding service such as vPost will save the international shipping charges). From Dangdang or Amazon CN you can find a large collection of Chinese book at good price (though the spectrum of quality is wide too - as a trade-off). Some English classics are translated into Chinese - it can be an interesting read.

Guess How Much I Love You (1994)

From the backcover - "How much can you love someone? Little Nutbrown Hare wants to show Big Nutbrown Hare how very much he loves him - but love as big as his is very hard to measure!"

Everyone will be touched by the tender conversation between the little and his dad. The little is enthusiastic in expressing his measurement of love, and you can expect some interesting answer from the dad.

Author: Sam McBratney
Illustrator: Anita Jeram
Suitable: Age 3-7 (Nursery, Kindergarten)
Format: Hard cover, board book
Size: 15x13x1cm, about A6
Pages: 32

Singapore: NLB,
Kinokuniya
Amazon: here

The Seeds of Reading

I started some storytelling session for NLB in 2008. This turned out to be really a fruitful journey. The experience of seeing children enjoying a story and sitting curiously for half an hour is simply rewarding. In addition, I dive into different storybooks (most of time my audience is from 4-8). The breadth of books for children is amazing: they can be big in size, brief in length yet not short of depth, they can be in plain sentence yet with delightful meaning, they can have simple storyline yet trigger spellbinding emotion. The illustration is always a crucial element for such books, some are brightly colorful, some are moody, some are minimal (pen and ink), yet they all create captivating imaginations. Most of the time, the books are all full of little details and comforting "twists", not only to children and also as a pleasant surprise to the adult reader.

The children's book speaks to the child in all of us. Sometimes you may recognize some books you happen to read in the childhood - it can be nostalgic!

I read to my son too (he is 3+). I plan to use this web site to register some books I read along the way and some gems that should belong in every library. Every child deserves one of his own library, even starting when he/she is born.