China Unit: Books, Books! A Huge List of Children’s Books

When we delve into a new unit, I search high and low for a wide variety of books. Not only do I want non-fiction books, but I also want books that bring the topic alive… and stories and novels are a wonderful way to do that.  This is a long (and probably incomplete!) list of the books we’ve used and are using in our China unit.

We’ve read a number of wonderful children’s books. My kids (even my 10 year old) enjoys listening to picture books.  I usually read them before hand and tie them into whatever topics we are studying. So for example, when we were reading and learning about the Shang dynasty and the Oracle bones, we read several picture books that were about Chinese calligraphy. Then we looked at how Chinese script evolved – and practiced writing some Chinese characters.

We read a novel together called Bound, (affiliate link), which is a Chinese Cinderella story (Did you know that the Cinderella stories of China pre-date the European stories by more than a thousand years?!!). We all loved, loved, loved that… and it touches on some great themes that we’ve come back to again and again… living in a cave home, ancestor worship, Chinese medicine, foot-binding and more.

We also read a Newbery Award winning novel called Where the Mountain Meets the Moon aloud together. (Actually, Grams finished reading it with the kids when I became so incredibly sensitive to sound/my own voice.)  The kids absolutely loved it (and so did my friend’s two kids who read it on their own).  DD said it was awesome, awesome! (Yes, two awesomes!!)

Shang, Zhou, Qin Dynasties (Note: The links below are affiliate links)

Other Books in our Unit (Note: The links below are affiliate links)

  • A Grain of Rice – Set in China, a clever peasant tries to win the hand of the princess. Gr 3-4 The kids read this independently.
  • Bound: A Chinese Cinderella Novel  (We read this book aloud together. It is about a girl whose foot is bound and her step sister who is forced to serve her. A novel that we read aloud together. Highly recommended.
  • Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story from China.  – This is a similar story to Bound. If you have the time, I recommend reading Bound, but this is terrific picture book.
  • Where the Mountain Meets the Moon – ( -Novel.  We read this novel together. Highly recommended.  DD says, “It’s awesome, awesome!!”

Download this Free Here: China Unit-Book List — Ancient Chinese Dynasties

ChinaUnit-BookList2

Other Books in our Unit (Note: The links below are affiliate links)

Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing Dynasties (Note: The links below are affiliate links)

You can print out these lists by clicking on the link below:

ChinaUnit-BookList-For-Kids

Disclosure:  Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.

For more links about our China Unit see below.  See you again soon here or over at our Homeschool Den Facebook Page!

Have a great day!

~Liesl

You might also be interested in these posts from our China Unit:

ChineseBrushPainting-KidsWork-675x310

ConfuciusNotebookPages

Other History Notebook Pages and Learning Packs I’ve made: 

15 Responses

  1. Kay says:

    These are such great resources! Thank you. 🙂 I love your Chinese Brush Painting lesson, and I found several books from your list that I want to find.

  1. April 8, 2014

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