Our favorite Chinese picture books at 3 years old

章鱼先生要比赛 [Mr. Octopus’s Competition] is a story about some animal friends competing in various events, such as who is the tallest, the fastest, or the loudest. The last page is a fun lift-the-flap where each animal gets a prize in their best event.

The book is silly, full of onomatopoeias (嗖!), and models friends negotiating what game to play and taking turns when they all want something different – exactly what my kid is learning at age 3. This book, and the next two, are from Curio’s bilingual book subscription.

饺子和汤圆 [Dumpling and Glutinous Rice Ball] is a rhyming story about two friends: a dumpling and a tang yuan. The book talks about their differences – dumpling likes eating meat and veggies, while tang yuan likes sweets; dumpling likes singing during Chinese New Year while tang yuan likes hanging up lanterns during the Lantern Festival – and ends with them discovering their similarities.

The characters are adorable, and the book makes an easy conversation starter to talk about Chinese food and holidays. Also, I’m always hungry after!

In 总有一个吃包子的理由 [There’s Always a Reason to Eat Bao], the boy tries various tactics to convince his mom to take them to the bao restaurant for dinner. He succeeds, and we watch him grow up, always loving bao.

This story is an accurate representation of many families in China – Dad is often away and the only child lives at home with Mom, while Grandma lives nearby. We see the boy studying abroad and his family preparing his favorite foods for when he returns. It warms the heart of this ABC.

Lastly , we have 帕拉帕拉山的妖怪 [The Monster of Mt. Palapala]. This is a story of a pig who sees the shadow of a porcupine late at night on Mt. Palapala and mistakes it for a monster. She tells her whole town and everyone panics.

This book was a little bit scary at first. There is a little bit of tension and the townspeople are scared, so it makes a great ghost story around Halloween at this age, especially since everyone understands that there were no real monsters by the end of the story.