The Year of the Dragon: Tales from the Chinese Zodiac

Tales from the Chinese Zodiac

by Oliver Chin, Jennifer Wood

Dominic's parents advise the kingdom's Emperor and have high expectations for this high-flying dragon. However, when the boy Bo and the other zodiac animals want to learn paddle boat racing, will Dom sink or swim with them? Find out in the seventh book in the Tales from the Chinese Zodiac series.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens

36 pages, Hardcover

First published December 20, 2011

About the author

Hi! I'm the author of twenty children's picture books, a graphic novel on 9-11, and a sports commentary on Yao Ming and the Tao.

I love creating stories that both kids and adults can get a kick out of (and enjoy countless times), and collaborating with amazing artists who bring these brave new worlds to life.

Themes range from trains, monsters (www.monsterisle.net), pirates, and inspirational martial arts heroine Julie Black Belt (www.julieblackbelt.com).

A rainbow of animals inhabit the popular annual series The Tales from the Chinese Zodiac. This is the only series in English that features each of the animals of the Lunar New Year. We've completed twelve unique adventures and are revising each new edition with a bilingual translation in simplified Chinese. Now we have a limited edition box set that collects the whole series.

Our new series The Asian Hall of Fame explores fantastic inventions from Asia. Each is the first English children's picture book on the subject. Dao is a cute red panda who brings the kids Emma and Ethan back in time... and then back to the future! Their first trip was The Discovery of Ramen. The sequel was the The Discovery of Fireworks and Gunpowder.

I'm also the publisher of Immedium (www.immedium.com) which is a San Francisco publisher of children's books and contemporary art and culture. Our titles include the original tales of The Octonauts (www.octonauts.com), which is now a hit animated TV series worldwide and airs on the Disney Channel in the USA and Netflix.

I graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991. My family lives in San Francisco, CA.

Reviews

[Kirsten Swanson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was looking for books that would help me teach about the Chinese dragon. It's part of a series called "Tales From the Chinse Zodiac." Unfortunately, this book might as well have been about a dog or a horse or a unicorn, really. It's a basic cooperative adventure story with a dragon inserted. As far as I could tell, the story has taken nothing from Chinese culture or mythology into it. There is one short paragraph on the last page (after the story) that lists the characteristics of people born in the Year of the Dragon.

One of the reviews on the back flap suggested that the book would make an excellent movie with a theme park tie-in. I had to laugh that shallow praise like that merited a placement on the cover flap.

No, if you want a book that will actually give you a taste of China, I suggest "The Sons of the Dragon King" by Ed Young, or "The Pet Dragon" by Christoph Niemann. The former is a real legend from China, and the latter incorporates Chinese characters into its illustrations, which are bright and lively but are good for more than a theme park tie-in.

I felt like The Year of the Dragon was a waste of my time. And it was a pretty short book!

[Teri · Rating 1 out of 5]

REALLY BAD!!! Funny that none of these "chinese" people look remotely Chinese!

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was okay but I waiting for it to cover all of the Chinese Zodiac animals not just the dragon. I just found out you have to buy the other 11 books to get that perspective. I think I will like this series because of the Chinese Zodiac character but I thought this book was too long. The pictures are great though!

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Chinese calendar, each year is represented by a special animal with unique character traits. "The Year of the Dragon" gives the tale of the dragon, and tells about his special traits and in a way that people can identify with. These tales are a great way to introduce students to the Chinese Zodiac. The tales are riveting and the illustrations fantastic!

[Alix Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute story for children. It's interesting and engaging while also teaching children about Chinese culture! Very educating yet fun at the same time.

[Calista · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this series on the Chinese Zodiac because they are bilingual books and I'm trying to use picture books to help me learn Mandarin. This book was not bilingual. There was only English in the book. What happened. Are some Bilingual and some not, or do they sell them as English only or Bilingual and the library didn't have the Bilingual???

The story was cute enough. The Zodiac animals were spending the summer together and they wanted to enter a boat race. The dragon is so big, he can fit inside the canoe. We fixes this dilemma by becoming the little boat.

All the animals were in this one. I was very disappointed that there was no Mandarin in this one. Cute, but unhelpful. The Dragon is the luckiest one in the Zodiac, but today, his luck didn't pull through.

[Rachel Willis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Neither Bebe or I liked this one. It seemed... Stilted? I don't know if this is from a series that I didn't know of and picks up in the middle, if it's a bad translation, or an early precursor to the AI writing trend (says it was published in 2012) or what it was... If someone told me some pages were randomly torn out, I'd believe it.

Not a winner for me and I had to practically sit on Bebe to get him to stay during the reading. I almost put it down but kept hoping it'd get better so kept on, much to Bebe's annoyance.

[Debra · Rating 3 out of 5]

These illustrations are adorable and I do think the young dragon character will appeal to some students. Unfortunately, I was hoping for more than a blurb at the end about the Dragon. I also do not have the funding to buy a book for each of the 12 books.

Add if you have the budget.