What do you think?
Rate this book
The Pet Dragon
Meet Lin and her pet dragon!
When the dragon mysteriously disappears, Lin sets off on a journey to find her best friend . . . and readers set off on a journey of learning and discovery.
By ingeniously integrating written Chinese characters into the illustrations as the story progresses, Christoph Niemann has created a book that is engrossing, unique, and memorable. The Pet Dragon is a playful introduction to the fascinating world of Chinese language and culture . . . and a terrific story to share with children everywhere.
You are invited to join Lin for an adventure you will not soon forget!
When the dragon mysteriously disappears, Lin sets off on a journey to find her best friend . . . and readers set off on a journey of learning and discovery.
By ingeniously integrating written Chinese characters into the illustrations as the story progresses, Christoph Niemann has created a book that is engrossing, unique, and memorable. The Pet Dragon is a playful introduction to the fascinating world of Chinese language and culture . . . and a terrific story to share with children everywhere.
You are invited to join Lin for an adventure you will not soon forget!
40 pages, Library Binding
First published September 1, 2008
11 people are currently reading
235 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 130 reviews
December 24, 2017
Check out more Picture book reviews @ Perspective of a Writer...
A playful introduction to written Chinese characters... Lin receives a gift of a baby dragon... when he disappears one day after many days of fun, Lin goes in search of him and we learn more characters as the story progresses!
The idea for this book was quite ingenious. It's not meant to teach you to say the words or even really learn words to use in a conversation. It is simply to make written Chinese characters accessible to children. I was attracted to the ART! It is the best sort of computer art and I knew my nephew would get a kick out of the dragon...
It's quite odd to have these stark black characters stuck into the beautiful illustrations! Because of that my nephew and I ended up picking the final illustration to draw since the characters were in the sky and not over faces.
There really isn't a message to the book though friendship is certainly hinted at. I do think though the book fulfills its purpose. Even now I can remember some of the characters that were taught (though I have NO IDEA how to say them as that wasn't the point of the book!)
I do like that the little story linked the pictures and I do think that if you want to expose your child to another language early on then this book does that and would be great in a home library! The art truly is engaging and I believe the concept comes across even to little children. The story is such that you could repeat it often for younger kids and spin wild tangents with older children!
BOTTOM LINE: A dragon book teach Chinese characters!
______________________
You can find this review and many others on my book blog @ Perspective of a Writer. See my picture book reviews in a special feature called Boo's Picture Gallery...
August 27, 2008
Story wise, the book was just so-so. What I did think was great about the book is how the illustrator integrates Chinese characters into the illustrations in a way that makes the characters understandable. I found that once I had read the book I could identify some of the characters on the last page. I think this book would be a great addition for collections that need preschool-early grade school titles on China.
June 24, 2017
This is the coolest book that I've read in awhile! The story itself--a girl losing her pet dragon and going on an adventure to find him--only facilitates the ingenious idea to introduce written Chinese characters through the illustrations. This is one big, visual mnemonic device for remembering what the words that the characters represent.
I fully support this method, because it relates to the learning theory of environmental contextualization, and can be applicable for students with various learning styles: kinesthetic, visual, auditory. In the classroom, I would use this for so many different lessons. One that pops out at me is having the students research other Chinese characters and label items in the classroom using the design principles of the book's illustrations.
I fully support this method, because it relates to the learning theory of environmental contextualization, and can be applicable for students with various learning styles: kinesthetic, visual, auditory. In the classroom, I would use this for so many different lessons. One that pops out at me is having the students research other Chinese characters and label items in the classroom using the design principles of the book's illustrations.
July 15, 2013
What a cool book! And who knew that my son already read it at school and knew the Chinese characters? (I was very pleased. The school is totally worth my money!)
Although I think some of the Chinese characters were inaccurate (or not what I learned), I did appreciate the pictures making the Chinese characters make more sense. I enjoyed all the pictures and the story was interesting.
Very excited!
Although I think some of the Chinese characters were inaccurate (or not what I learned), I did appreciate the pictures making the Chinese characters make more sense. I enjoyed all the pictures and the story was interesting.
Very excited!
August 17, 2020
A delightful book about a pet dragon that also introduces children to Chinese characters.
July 19, 2013
When my daughter was learning Chinese in high school, she used to have a character book in which she would write each character she had to learn that day over and over. Each character, she would tell me, is like a picture of its meaning. And when you read Christoph Niemann's cleverly written book The Pet Dragon, you can really see how true that it.
The story is simple - a young girl, Lin, is given a pet baby dragon as a gift. Lin and the dragon do everything together, but when the dragon shatters a vase, Lin's father insists he be put in a cage. The next morning, the cage is empty and the dragon has left. Lin looks everywhere for her friend - in the city, in the country and finally, with the help of an old lady and some magic beans, in the sky. There, she finally finds her baby dragon, now all grown up and beautiful, living with his family. When Lin returns home, she and the dragon promise to visit with each other often, and her father is so happy she has returned, he plans a celebration for Lin and the dragon.
The beauty of this book isn't exactly in the story, but in how Nieman has worked the Chinese characters into it to demonstrate the pictorial meaning of the characters used. Each character used is superimposed over a corresponding illustration.
Niemann states that his purpose is not to give kids, or adults for that matter, lessons in Chinese, but to perhaps inspire them them to want to learn more. And, though the story is a bit forced, it's purpose is not to tell a clever story, but to ingeniously demonstrate how characters reveal their meaning.
The characters used are simple enough for young children to learn and remember. When we first got this book, my niece L'naya was fascinated by it. One day we were in a restaurant, waiting for our meal to come, and next thing we knew. L'naya had written some of the characters from the book on the place mat. My Kiddo was amazed that L'naya had remembered both the character and its meaning so easily.
Niemann introduces the reader to 33 common, useful characters, making The Pet Dragon is definitely a fun book for beginning Chinese or just to read out of curiosity.
This book is recommended for readers age 4+
This book was purchased for my personal library.
This review was originally posted at Randomly Reading
The story is simple - a young girl, Lin, is given a pet baby dragon as a gift. Lin and the dragon do everything together, but when the dragon shatters a vase, Lin's father insists he be put in a cage. The next morning, the cage is empty and the dragon has left. Lin looks everywhere for her friend - in the city, in the country and finally, with the help of an old lady and some magic beans, in the sky. There, she finally finds her baby dragon, now all grown up and beautiful, living with his family. When Lin returns home, she and the dragon promise to visit with each other often, and her father is so happy she has returned, he plans a celebration for Lin and the dragon.
The beauty of this book isn't exactly in the story, but in how Nieman has worked the Chinese characters into it to demonstrate the pictorial meaning of the characters used. Each character used is superimposed over a corresponding illustration.
Niemann states that his purpose is not to give kids, or adults for that matter, lessons in Chinese, but to perhaps inspire them them to want to learn more. And, though the story is a bit forced, it's purpose is not to tell a clever story, but to ingeniously demonstrate how characters reveal their meaning.
The characters used are simple enough for young children to learn and remember. When we first got this book, my niece L'naya was fascinated by it. One day we were in a restaurant, waiting for our meal to come, and next thing we knew. L'naya had written some of the characters from the book on the place mat. My Kiddo was amazed that L'naya had remembered both the character and its meaning so easily.
Niemann introduces the reader to 33 common, useful characters, making The Pet Dragon is definitely a fun book for beginning Chinese or just to read out of curiosity.
This book is recommended for readers age 4+
This book was purchased for my personal library.
This review was originally posted at Randomly Reading
December 18, 2008
The colors and forms of the illustrations are definitely extremely eye-pleasing. The subject matter (Chinese characters/words) is definitely in high demand these days. However, I find the "story" very forced (where did that green witch pop into the story? And a Pet Dragon is definitely NOT a very Chinese concept. Dragons are not cute little creatures to have as friends! I blame Disney's Mulan for this belittling of a powerful mythical being.)
It is also odd that there is no reference whatsoever to the sounds of these words -- as if Chinese cannot be pronounced, or as if these characters should be pronounced with their English sounds.
The jarring juxtaposition of an extremely traditionally garbed child with a completely modern and western-style clothed father also makes me somewhat uncomfortable -- I can't figure out the reasons behind such choices.
It is also odd that there is no reference whatsoever to the sounds of these words -- as if Chinese cannot be pronounced, or as if these characters should be pronounced with their English sounds.
The jarring juxtaposition of an extremely traditionally garbed child with a completely modern and western-style clothed father also makes me somewhat uncomfortable -- I can't figure out the reasons behind such choices.
June 4, 2014
I LOVE this picture book. I love the concept which aligns perfectly with my own visual approach to the world and, I suspect, many children's also. (That of finding visual cues everywhere to help understand and learn things.) My 9 year old son loves the book as well and took great delight in re-reading it when he saw I had it out from the library again.
The illustrations are delightful, work perfectly and have great style and design sense. The story is simple and follows the fairytale tradition, working perfectly. There's even a page at the end where the reader can practice or puzzle out which Chinese characters mean what, to test his or her memory and reading of the story. There's nothing that lets this book down.
The illustrations are delightful, work perfectly and have great style and design sense. The story is simple and follows the fairytale tradition, working perfectly. There's even a page at the end where the reader can practice or puzzle out which Chinese characters mean what, to test his or her memory and reading of the story. There's nothing that lets this book down.
October 22, 2008
Fantastic book design and illustration, but the story was convoluted and confusing and didn't match up very well to the clever premise of Chinese character interpretation. I so wanted to give this five stars, too- very cool concept.
October 25, 2008
This reminds me of the pedestrian "tell and draw" you often find in storytelling books. The language is stilted and the plot disjointed.
People with an interest in Chinese characters will find this useful. But as a picture book, it falls flat.
People with an interest in Chinese characters will find this useful. But as a picture book, it falls flat.
November 26, 2008
Creative. I didn't necessarily love the story, but the usage of Chinese characters as part of the story to teach basic Chinese was pretty cool. I don't know anything about Chinese so I have no idea how great it really is. But my 3 year old loved that there was a dragon in it.
August 29, 2008
Pretty pictures, some chinese characters shown in the picture, but all in all, I'm not too impressed. The story depth was rather thin even for children books.
July 20, 2011
Cute, imaginative, and I daresay very effective method for learning some Chinese characters.
October 11, 2012
With Chinese characters as the inspiration, this book tells the story of a lost dragon.
October 3, 2014
My daughter loves this book and it's an excellent way to teach Chinese symbols.
December 18, 2024
The Pet Dragon is one of those books that sold me on it by its concept alone. Study Chinese for long enough and you will start to notice that some characters look like an abstract version of what they mean: 川 means river, 人 means person, 中 means middle. Christoph Niemann illustrates these characters and more into a fun children's narrative.
The narrative is admittedly secondary to the concept, but not by too much - my daughter has had me read The Pet Dragon at least five times, and it has not worn itself out yet. A more trite story would have suffered more in the repetition, even if it does not come close to the best children's books can offer.
It does, however, feel like it was not written by someone fluent in Chinese. I am not remotely an expert, but there were a few characters that stood out against my rudimentary knowledge. 狗 means dog, but Niemann uses 犬 instead. He also uses 木 for tree instead of 树, which would be more correct. As I understand it these are archaic uses of these characters, not technically incorrect but probably not the best choice in the modern language. It probably would have been better to leave the words out entirely.
Less of a miss but worth mentioning is that Niemann decided not to include pinyin-style pronunciations of the characters. That would have forced the book to pick a Chinese language like Mandarin or Cantonese for the pronunciation, so not including pronunciation may have been the right call. The book is more universal as it is. But for the purposes of learning about Chinese, adding the pronunciation seems like it would have been a good idea.
The Pet Dragon is good for learning purposes first, but it has an entertainment value that will certainly keep kids engaged. For the reader interested in Chinese or introducing their child Chinese, you could certainly do worse.
The narrative is admittedly secondary to the concept, but not by too much - my daughter has had me read The Pet Dragon at least five times, and it has not worn itself out yet. A more trite story would have suffered more in the repetition, even if it does not come close to the best children's books can offer.
It does, however, feel like it was not written by someone fluent in Chinese. I am not remotely an expert, but there were a few characters that stood out against my rudimentary knowledge. 狗 means dog, but Niemann uses 犬 instead. He also uses 木 for tree instead of 树, which would be more correct. As I understand it these are archaic uses of these characters, not technically incorrect but probably not the best choice in the modern language. It probably would have been better to leave the words out entirely.
Less of a miss but worth mentioning is that Niemann decided not to include pinyin-style pronunciations of the characters. That would have forced the book to pick a Chinese language like Mandarin or Cantonese for the pronunciation, so not including pronunciation may have been the right call. The book is more universal as it is. But for the purposes of learning about Chinese, adding the pronunciation seems like it would have been a good idea.
The Pet Dragon is good for learning purposes first, but it has an entertainment value that will certainly keep kids engaged. For the reader interested in Chinese or introducing their child Chinese, you could certainly do worse.
November 9, 2020
As someone with a 4-year-old, and who has gone through all the steps to create a children's book and get it published, I have a growing appreciation for this genre. It is truly an art that most have no idea about.
Christoph Niemann has already built a following for his beautiful illustrations, and The Pet Dragon: A Story about Adventure, Friendship, and Chinese Characters is no exception. The illustrations captured me and my 4-year-old's attention. Beyond that, I enjoyed this book because I live in Japan, which uses Kanji characters based on Chinese characters. Through reading this book, which embeds the Chinese writing characters into the story, my daughter and I learned about 30 characters.
This is a clever way to tell a story while encouraging light language learning at the same time—and the story is also pretty interesting. I would like to take a not from Christoph Niemann and make my own children's picture book using Japanese kanji.
Christoph Niemann has already built a following for his beautiful illustrations, and The Pet Dragon: A Story about Adventure, Friendship, and Chinese Characters is no exception. The illustrations captured me and my 4-year-old's attention. Beyond that, I enjoyed this book because I live in Japan, which uses Kanji characters based on Chinese characters. Through reading this book, which embeds the Chinese writing characters into the story, my daughter and I learned about 30 characters.
This is a clever way to tell a story while encouraging light language learning at the same time—and the story is also pretty interesting. I would like to take a not from Christoph Niemann and make my own children's picture book using Japanese kanji.
September 27, 2017
Lin receives a baby dragon. They become fast friends, but when the dragon breaks a valuable vase Lin's father banishes him to a cage. The next morning, the dragon is gone and Lin searches high and low to find him. Along the way, she helps an old woman across a river. In payment for her kindness, the old woman eats a magic bean and lifts Lin up to the sky where she finds her friend the dragon living with other dragons. The two friends play and the dragon returns Lin to her home, where her father agrees to allow them to play together whenever they want. The best part of this story is that Christopher Niemann works Chinese symbols/words into his illustrations, so that the reader begins to learn a few Chinese words while reading the story.
picture-books
June 24, 2023Date: 03.06.23
81 Attendees
Theme: Dragons
Introduction and announcements: Hype up Bookmobile
Shake my Sillies out by Raffi
Book one: The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch
Song/rhyme/game one: The Princess Pat (call and response)
Book two: Dragon Stew by Steve Smallman
Song/rhyme/game two: The Floor is Lava by the Kiboomers
Book three: The Pet Dragon by Christoph Niemann
Song/ rhyme/ game three: We are the Dragons with dance scarves
We are dragons
We have wings
We can fly and do dragon things
We can breathe fire
Swish our long tails
Travel for miles without leaving trails!
Roaring, soaring dragons fly
And now it’s time for dragons to say goodbye.
Special Signs and announcements: Hype up Bookmobile
Activity: Dragon Coloring Pages
81 Attendees
Theme: Dragons
Introduction and announcements: Hype up Bookmobile
Shake my Sillies out by Raffi
Book one: The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch
Song/rhyme/game one: The Princess Pat (call and response)
Book two: Dragon Stew by Steve Smallman
Song/rhyme/game two: The Floor is Lava by the Kiboomers
Book three: The Pet Dragon by Christoph Niemann
Song/ rhyme/ game three: We are the Dragons with dance scarves
We are dragons
We have wings
We can fly and do dragon things
We can breathe fire
Swish our long tails
Travel for miles without leaving trails!
Roaring, soaring dragons fly
And now it’s time for dragons to say goodbye.
Special Signs and announcements: Hype up Bookmobile
Activity: Dragon Coloring Pages
August 10, 2021
Very creative book. It was just disappointing that the Chinese characters that were taught didn't necessarily go with the story. For example, the story is about a pet dragon, but we are never taught "dragon." A few more examples: On the page about ping-pong, we are taught "middle." The page about a ball, we are taught "eye." The walking pages teach "gate," "work," and "mountain."
All of the characters are taught in the pictures, so maybe the characters for the words I would like to see don't go with the pictures...
All of the characters are taught in the pictures, so maybe the characters for the words I would like to see don't go with the pictures...
July 21, 2018
This is such a great idea! The story + the illustrations with the characters superimposed over them is an incredible way to help teach a new language to anyone, but especially to little ones. Even if this book only covers a few basic words, it exposes children to the concept of language learning in a fun way and makes it something as commonplace as reading before bed! I sure hope there’s more of these kinds of books floating around, and not just for Chinese characters.
May 11, 2019
https://dominicamat.blogspot.com/2018...
Βιβλιοπρόταση για τους μικρούς βιβλιόφιλους το βιβλίο "Ο φίλος μου ο δράκος"-μία ιστορία με κινέζικα ιδεογράμματα. Συγγραφέας Christoph Niemann. Η μικρή αλλά περιεκτική ιστορία του βιβλίου μαζί με τις ωραίες χρηματιστές εικόνες θα τους τραβήξουν το ενδιαφέρον καί θα περάσουν όμορφα. Παράλληλα θα μάθουν διάφορες λεξούλες πως λέγονται καί γράφονται στα κινέζικα.
Βιβλιοπρόταση για τους μικρούς βιβλιόφιλους το βιβλίο "Ο φίλος μου ο δράκος"-μία ιστορία με κινέζικα ιδεογράμματα. Συγγραφέας Christoph Niemann. Η μικρή αλλά περιεκτική ιστορία του βιβλίου μαζί με τις ωραίες χρηματιστές εικόνες θα τους τραβήξουν το ενδιαφέρον καί θα περάσουν όμορφα. Παράλληλα θα μάθουν διάφορες λεξούλες πως λέγονται καί γράφονται στα κινέζικα.
May 28, 2017
PERHAPS it is because I love symbols, but reading this book out loud to my little grandson, was such an adventure for me. All the pictures were overlaid on a Chinese Character. I will always remember river and mountain, and perhaps, man, woman, witch, mouth, eye, dragon.
I thought this book was truly fun.
I thought this book was truly fun.
October 30, 2018
The art and integration of the Chinese pictographs characters is fabulous. They make up for a story that is not terribly compelling, but do a great job of introducing you readers to Chinese. Fantastic work.
February 20, 2020
When Lin's pet dragon runs away, she goes off on a journey to find him. The illustrations incorporate Chinese characters into the pictures in interesting ways. This would be a fun one to use for Chinese New Year or alongside any lessons about China for young readers.
February 27, 2023
8/10
Hardcover
First children's book I've geeked out about as a language nerd. The story was a lil simple for me. However, using illustrations in the shape of the Chinese characters which represent them... Genius.
Hardcover
First children's book I've geeked out about as a language nerd. The story was a lil simple for me. However, using illustrations in the shape of the Chinese characters which represent them... Genius.
July 21, 2017
Fun story and clever way of teaching some Chinese characters - I would think ages 3-9 would enjoy it, but I enjoyed it too!
October 1, 2017
cute little story and an introduction to Chinese characters
October 12, 2017
A story about a girl and her pet dragon. I love how the writer, Christoph Nieman, integratting writen chinese characters into illustration.
November 1, 2017
this book shows the importance of being nice to others. it also has chinese characters to learn that go along with the story
Displaying 1 - 30 of 130 reviews