A good book to test the waters
3 stars
I’m writing this review from the point of view of someone who read the book as a language learning exercise, rather than someone who read it for the story (let’s be honest, I’m way too old to be able to judge how interesting the plot of this children’s book actually is for the target audience). And from this point of view, the book does its job well.
It is short compared to adult novels, but (in my opinion) reasonably long for a children’s book. Therefore the story’s length won’t overwhelm you, but it won’t be over after you blink a few times either. The language used is relatively simple, with many, and I mean many repetitions… which can be good and helpful in memorizing new vocabulary, but also infuriating when you do know that vocabulary. Let me give you an example:
但是哭有什么用呢？小明和冬哥儿也知道哭是没有用的。冬哥儿说：“哭是没有用的呀。
This sort of thing happens on almost every …
I’m writing this review from the point of view of someone who read the book as a language learning exercise, rather than someone who read it for the story (let’s be honest, I’m way too old to be able to judge how interesting the plot of this children’s book actually is for the target audience). And from this point of view, the book does its job well.
It is short compared to adult novels, but (in my opinion) reasonably long for a children’s book. Therefore the story’s length won’t overwhelm you, but it won’t be over after you blink a few times either. The language used is relatively simple, with many, and I mean many repetitions… which can be good and helpful in memorizing new vocabulary, but also infuriating when you do know that vocabulary. Let me give you an example:
但是哭有什么用呢？小明和冬哥儿也知道哭是没有用的。冬哥儿说：“哭是没有用的呀。
This sort of thing happens on almost every page, with the same sentence being repeated multiple times in a row, only slightly changed. I could feel my eyes glazing over every time this happened, and it made the book a bit annoying to read in the long run – hence the 3/5 stars rating.
It is, however, true that I found it too simple in general, which might have had some impact on the boredom I felt while reading. 《秃秃大王》 helped me establish how comfortable I feel with reading in Chinese, and it made me realize that it might have been a bit below my level. Which is fine: I picked it as my first book to read entirely in Chinese specifically to determine that. If anything, it boosted my confidence in my abilities, which is in itself something I desperately needed.
For what it’s worth, I think this is a good choice as one of the first books to read in Chinese. You should be able to read it with no problems if you’re around HSK3/HSK4 level.