This story started back in 2014 when I created my webcomic Dumpster Dragon for kids and grownups who are kids at heart. When I first started it, I purposely used no words since I wanted my grandmother, who doesn’t read English, to be able to understand it.
When I had a child of my own, I was frustrated by the lack of bilingual children’s books, and the ones that existed were in either Simplified or Traditional Chinese, never both. My college Chinese course taught me both, and it always struck me as odd that grade school and children’s books don’t do the same thing, especially since young children pick up languages faster than adults.
That’s when I realized that, ironically, my wordless webcomic could work as a bilingual book. My goals with the book are:
- Rhyming the narration both Chinese and English (How cool is that?!)
- Include both Simplified and Traditional Chinese
- Include both Pinyin and Zhuyin (This is Western and Taiwan phonics)
- Include both Western and Eastern representation
- Make the story heartwarming and
- Have amazing artwork (I’ll do my best illustrating)
Draft Art
Zine
This provides readers a taste of what my bilingual book will be like. It uses Traditional Chinese when read right to left, and English and Simplified Chinese when read from left to right. The middle has an English/Chinese vocabulary list so readers can see and learn the differences between Simplified and Traditional Chinese. As with my bilingual book, my goal is to keep the same meaning while rhyming in both English and Chinese. You can print this at home and fold the pages using these directions!
