Flip for Joy Review & Giveaway

How sweet is this photo of Bubbles being read to by one of her second cousins? She was sitting so still and listening so attentively.

 
I posted an interview with Jiang Meiru of Flip for Joy recently, and am happy that this online bookstore is helping, in its own way, to instil the love of reading in children.

In the last couple of weeks, I was thrilled to explore 6 books/sets from Flip for Joy with my girls and would like to share my thoughts about them with you. There is one $30 e-gift card from Flip for Joy up for grabs, and you may first scroll to the bottom of this post to read about the giveaway if you wish!

1.  摇摆的虫子（4册）
This is a set of small board books each with an attached finger puppet of an insect. Each puppet pokes through all the pages of a book, and Bun is really attracted to them. I would wriggle the puppets as I read the books to her.  I love it that these books are written in both English and Chinese, which makes them value for money. These pocket-sized books are also small and sturdy enough to be thrown into diaper bags for trips out! This set makes an excellent gift for young ones.

2.  迪士尼宝宝系列 (6册）
It is hard to go wrong with Disney for kids, and this set of six board books prove it. If Bun was attracted to the finger puppets of the books above, I was drawn to the board quality and images of these books. These books are very well made, and the fiddle functions (as I call them!), with lift-the-flaps, mirrors, pull-outs etc, are of excellent quality - not the type that will easily fall apart as some books do. Soothing pastel shades are used throughout the books. The words in the book are written in a way that one will speak to a baby or a very young child. I found this charming, and admittedly picked up a couple of phrases to use when I talk to my children in Mandarin now. A great starter set for young children!

3. 点点多多系列一：在海滩、放风筝、玩游戏
Here are 3 out of 5 books from the 点点和多多 series. (Or Dot and Dash, as they are known in English). These books describe the characters in various fun and familiar situations - at the beach, flying a kite and playing a game. There are many touch and feel elements in the books, including cute pop-ups. The sentences used in the books are short and catchy. My children have many similar books in English, and I am glad they now have these Chinese ones too!

4. 顶级阅读系列 (18册）

A Chinese reading series! I was so glad to receive this and that Bubbles enjoyed them. There are 18 books in total and they have been developed for young ones to learn to read. I found the hanyu pinyin provided very useful, as with the summary/quiz pages at the end of each chapter. The earlier books have simple summaries of key words, while the more advanced books feature quizzes like fill-in-the-blanks to reinforce new vocabulary covered. Key words also come with English translation - a feature I also found useful as a parent. Other Chinese reading sets I've seen are of fiction. This one features themes of everyday life, like the environment, occupations, and seasons. I found that quite a nice change and would definitely recommend this set!

5. 奇妙洞洞书：马戏团 *注音
This is a beautifully designed and colourful board book that I understand was translated from an Italian series. It describes various circus acts while introducing a colours. I have yet to read this to Bubbles as it is written in a poetic form and the truth is that I am not yet able to read this fluently enough to make this sound as beautiful as I believe it should be. Thankfully, this book comes with hanyu pinyin as well, and I am sure I'll be able to read this well enough soon with practice! We read lots of English books with rhymes and poems, so I do think this is a great addition to a child's bookshelf!

6. 数一数，亲了几下
We are fans of Karen Katz and therefore this book caught our eyes. In true Karen Katz style, this book had delightful illustrations and sweet wordings. It covers the numbers 1 to 10 by counting the number of kisses a mother gives her baby. I found Bubbles attracted to this book because of the familiarity of the illustrations. 

(books c/o Flip for Joy)

Receiving these recommended books from Flip for Joy made me a little more confident in Chinese book choices for my children. We sure do have quite a bit to work on as we don't speak much of the language at home, but we do try! Mummybean wrote a useful post about using an iPhone app to help with the reading of Chinese books to children. Roboman uses the Pleco app as we are on Android. If you are like us and sometimes have trouble reading Chinese characters, these apps are a godsend!

Flip for Joy is offering a $30 e-gift card (valid for 6 months) to one A Dollop of Me's reader!

If you would like a chance to win this card, leave a comment on this blog post telling us what you like about Flip for Joy, and your email address. We're giving extra chances for each Facebook "like" and Twitter follow. Just indicate your likes and follow in your comment!

This giveaway will end on Tuesday 5 March 11pm, Singapore time (GMT+8). Best wishes!

Links:
Flip for Joy Facebook
A Dollop of Me Facebook
A Dollop of Me Twitter