Bilingual Cantonese Books for Kids #ReadYourWorld

Read Your World 2025 (1/30/25) is in its 13^th year! Valarie Budayr and Mia Wenjen founded this non-profit children’s literacy initiative; they are two diverse book-loving moms who saw a need to shine the spotlight on all of the multicultural diverse books and authors on the market while also working to get those books into the hands of young readers and educators.

Read Your World’s mission is to raise awareness of the need to include kids’ books celebrating diversity in homes and school bookshelves. Read about the mission and history HERE. Make sure to scroll to the end of this post for more information on how to join the Read Your World Book Day virtual party and other details about this amazing event!

Bilingual Cantonese & English Children’s Books

One of the most important parts of Read Your World Book Day is the book reviews. Read Your World matches up volunteer book reviewers with authors. I specifically requested to review Asian picture books given my heritage and interest in picture books as a children’s author myself. This year Read Your World matched me with two bilingual Cantonese and English picture books by Karen Yee.

I was thrilled to review Calvin Goes to School and Calvin Celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival as my parents speak Cantonese. However, when I attended Chinese School as a child, the classes were taught only in Mandarin Chinese. As such, I can read Mandarin Chinese pinyin (the romanization of Chinese characters) and speak it much better than Cantonese. Cantonese and Mandarin dialects are considered part of the Chinese language, but they sound nothing alike. As such, a Cantonese speaker would likely have a difficult time understanding a person speaking Mandarin and vice versa.

Cantonese books are less common than Mandarin in the Chinese bilingual book market. This is not surprising as Mandarin Chinese is the official dialect of China and the most spoken dialect. But it’s also important to me to have ties to my Cantonese background. As such, I’m glad Read Your World matched me with these two bilingual Cantonese books!

The Bilingual Look and Find book series by Karen Yee includes the following features:

• Spoken Cantonese with Jyutping romanization
• Essential vocabulary for everyday conversation
• “Look and find” over 50 illustrated keywords and phrases
• Cantonese audio recordings available online
• Find Calvin’s dinosaur throughout the book
• Ideal for children ages 2-6 years old
• Key phrases are color-coded to English

Read on to find out more about Calvin Goes to School and Calvin Celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Calvin Goes to School

Young readers can follow Calvin and his animal friends’ Dragon and Red Panda as they spend the day at school. The story shows the trio doing many activities such as circle time, recess, nap time, reading, and more. The text includes handy school vocabulary used in everyday speech. Vocabulary lists along the bottom of each page guide children to “point and name” the items pictured in the story. 

Joyful, vivid illustrations by Bima Susila and Isabel Nadal bring the story to life. Children will enjoy seeing all the animal classmates spending time together and learning from Teacher Owl.

To hear the audio of Calvin Goes to School spoken in Cantonese, please visit www.greencowsbooks.com/calvin-goes-to-school. For a fun activity, check out printable Calvin Goes to School coloring pages.

Calvin Goes to School is available in the U.S. on Amazon. It is also available in the UK/Europe (Bamboo Bilingual).

Calvin Celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival

Calvin Celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival is the second book in the Calvin “Look and Find” series which is designed to help children and adults learn Cantonese together. The Mid-Autumn Festival, often also called the Harvest Moon Festival or Mooncake Festival, is based on the legend of Chang’e, the moon goddess. Families come together to celebrate the bright full moon and harvest time, spend time together, and eat traditional foods.

In Calvin Celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival, Calvin and his animal friends spend the holiday embracing traditions like eating delicious mooncakes and watching a dragon dance. Everyday Cantonese words and color coding make it easy for readers to learn useful phrases. Colorful, expressive illustrations by Bima Susila engage children and make the story fun to read.

Listen to the audio of the story read in Cantonese at www.greencowsbooks.com/fun-bilingual-cantonese-english-picture-book-for-kids-calvin-celebrates-the-mid-autumn-festival/. Kids can celebrate the holiday with printable Mid-Autumn Festival coloring pages on the publisher’s website.

Calvin Celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other major retailers.

About the Author

Karen Yee is a Cantonese-American mom who began creating her own educational materials when she couldn’t find fun, illustrated books for teaching her kids Cantonese. Today, her entire family speaks Cantonese. She hopes her books support other families on their language journeys. Karen graduated from Stanford University and The Wharton School, and was a National Spelling Bee finalist. She lives with her family in California. Learn more at www.greencowsbooks.com.

Read Your World Book Day 2025

Read Your World is honored to be supported by these Medallion Sponsors:

FOUNDER’S CIRCLE: Mia Wenjen (Pragmaticmom) and Valarie Budayr (Audreypress.com)

🏅 Super Platinum Sponsor: Author Deedee Cummings and Make A Way Media

🏅 Platinum Sponsors: Publisher Spotlight and  Language Lizard Bilingual Books in 60 Languages 

🏅 Gold Sponsors:  Third State Books 

🏅 Silver Sponsors: Red Comet Press and Lerner Books 

🏅 Silver Corporate Sponsor:  Scholastic Books 

🏅 Bronze Sponsors:  Lee and Low 

🏅 Corporate Sponsor: Crayola Education and Scholastic

Read Your World is honored to be Supported by these Author Sponsors!

Authors: Stephanie M. Wildman, Martha Seif Simpson, Anna Jennings, Gwen Jackson, Afsaneh Moradian, Josh Funk, Nancy Tupper Ling, Kathleen Burkinshaw, Gea Meijering, Eugenia Chu, Dorktales Story Time, Amanda Hsiung-Blodgett, Authors J.C. Kato and J.C.², Cynthia Levinson, Diana Huang, Rochelle Melander,  Lisa Chong, Lisa Stringfellow,  Brunella Costaglioga, Lindsey Rowe Parker, Rachel C. Katz, Tonya Duncan Ellis, Shifa Safadi, Lisa Rogers, Sylvia Liu, Eva Clarke

Read Your World is Honored to be Supported by our CoHosts and Global CoHosts and by our Partner Organizations! 

Check out RYW’s Multicultural Books for Kids Pinterest Board.

📌 FREE RESOURCES from Read Your World Day

• RYW2025 Poster
• Mental Health Support for Stressful Times Classroom Kit
• Diversity Book Lists & Activities for Teachers and Parents
• Homeschool Diverse Kidlit Booklist & Activity Kit
• FREE Teacher Classroom Activism and Activists Kit
• FREE Teacher Classroom Empathy Kit
• FREE Teacher Classroom Kindness Kit
• FREE Teacher Classroom Physical and Developmental Challenges Kit
• FREE Teacher Classroom Poverty Kit
• Gallery of Our Free Posters
• FREE Diversity Book for Classrooms Program

📌 Register for the Read Your World Virtual Party

Join us on Thursday, January 30, 2025, at 9 pm EST celebrating 13 years of  Read Your World Day Virtual Party! Register here. 

This epically fun and fast-paced hour includes multicultural book discussions, addressing timely issues, diverse book recommendations, & reading ideas.

We will be giving away a 10-Book Bundle during the virtual party plus Bonus Prizes as well! *** US and Global participants are welcome. **

Follow the hashtag #ReadYourWorld to join the conversation, and connect with like-minded parts, authors, publishers, educators, organizations, and librarians. We look forward to seeing you all on January 30, 2025, at our virtual party!