"Wordless books? That's like asking for teh peng (iced tea) mai teh (without tea)!" Hubs scoffed when I first showed him the concept of children's' books without words.
Raymond Briggs's The Snowman is on our Christmas reading list after I discovered that Chinese translated books cost less than half of the original English versions. Given my very limited Chinese reading skills, it's a good thing that the book is wordless.
Bubs was enthralled with the soft and gentle illustrations about a boy that builds a snowman that comes to life. At the beginning, Bubs asked if we should write out the story in pencil onto the pages (I've been sneakily doing that for a few other Chinese translated picture books we got) but I pointed out that the beauty of a wordless book is that the reader is able to change the words each time they read it, so it doesn't stay fixed. Plus, you're able to do the storytelling in any language you want to.
Even Hubs had to admit the tale was beautifully told in the muted sketching.
Here's Bub's version of a snowman and reindeer :)
What a brilliant idea!
ReplyDeleteWill try to track this one down too.
SSG xxx
Try David Wiesner as well, Flotsam is 1 of our favourites!
Deletehmm... since the book is wordless, I wonder what's the translation for? :P
ReplyDeleteThe title & author's name are only in Chinese, lol, saves me some $$$
DeleteStarting to be able to translate English names now to Chinese!