You Can Write Chinese

by Kurt Wiese

Contents shaken. Bottom edge of back cover worn through. A respectable unstained copy with a bookplate and two wrinkled pages.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Nonfiction, School, Asia, Language, China

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1945

About the author

Kurt Wiese was a book illustrator. Wiese wrote and illustrated 20 children's books and illustrated another 300 for other authors.

From an early age Kurt Wiese dreamed of being a painter but his family opposed it and sent him to learn the export business. For six years he lived and worked in China selling merchandise. During World War I, he was captured by the Japanese, and turned over to the British. He spent five years as a prisoner, most of them in Australia, where his fascination with the animal life inspired him to start sketching again. When he was released, he returned to Germany where he was able to sell all of the artwork he had created while he was detained, in spite of having no formal training. He traveled to Brazil for three years and then to the United States where he was hired by Collier's magazine.

Between 1927 and 1931 Wiese wrote and illustrated 7 books and illustrated 26 books for other authors. In 1930 he married Gertrude Hansen, a real estate agent, and they bought a little farmhouse near Frenchtown, New Jersey, where Wiese set up a studio in an old blacksmith shop. He lived and worked there until his death in 1974.

In total, during a career of over half a century, Kurt Wiese illustrated over 400 books. He wrote and illustrated 18 books of his own, two of which were Caldecott Honor books.

Reviews

[Calista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where was this book when I was having to learn Chinese characters? The story is an American kid is in China trying to learn Chinese at School. The book is his actual lesson.

He shows how the pictures relate to what they represent really well. He makes sense of all the little marks. Anyone interested in their characters will find this helpful. Kurt really makes it clear where the characters come from.

My niece is very smart and likes to investigate things, so she was willing to read this book and she found it interesting. She gave it 4 stars and she can make a few characters as well.

There number system is crazy. I think the way our numbers work is much easier. They have to put up a character for 100 or 1000 or 10 so 1945 can 7 characters to write 4. It was a great learning book. I could have used this in school. I still find it helpful to me. At least I knew about 70% of the characters in here, but seeing them overlaid on the picture really helped. Pig and horse and interesting. Chinese philosophy is very wrapped up in the character and you can learn a lot about the culture just studying their characters.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book on loan from the Internet Archive.

This is a truly well-deserved Caldecott honor. This book does an excellent job of showing the picture writing of Chinese, and the why behind the pictures. Beautiful and informative.

[SamZ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Favorite Illustration: the first page showing the harbor at sunrise with the boats in the lake and the houses on the hillside.
Chinese is a very old language. It is not written with letters but with characters representing many different words. This starts out as a story about an American boy living in China and going to school to learn Chinese. Then it pretty much becomes a list of Chinese characters and what they mean. It was a cute concept, but definitely wouldn't hold my daughter's attention.

[Katie Fitzgerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book begins as a story about a young American boy learning Chinese, but really focuses mostly on how to draw and pronounce basic Chinese characters. The whole thing is sort of couched in this touchy-feely idea about the relationship between America and China, which felt strange, but the information itself is valuable and well-presented. I especially liked learning how the different characters relate to one another and to their meanings.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool pictures!

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was actually a bit of a story to this book, though the main part of the story comes from the illustrations of the Chinese characters. Peter, a young American boy is in a class with Chinese boys who are learning the words and characters for the first time. I enjoyed the simple black line drawings with the crayon outlines.

This is an odd book to review. It won a 1946 Caldecott Honor award. It is definitely dated as you can see from some of the depictions of the Chinese men in the book. However, given other book topics from the same year and time period, it is pretty unique and does teach you about basic Chinese characters and how they were first created and how you can duplicate them on your own. I’m not sure how much difference there is now between the words and meanings used back then and what is used now, as I am not an expert. I knew nothing about the author/illustrator, but I did find this little blurb on him: http://www.childrensliteraturenetwork... . Recommended for ages 5-8, 3 stars.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Introduces some Chinese characters and explains how to write them in a way that reminded me of how we speak about constellations. The idea that the picture is formed by shapes that symbolize parts of a story was an interesting way to think about the Chinese characters presented in text. The story was a little dijointed for me as it begins with a classroom of Chinese boys and one American boy and their feelings of apprehension regarding school, but then all of that framework seems to disappear when the discussion of the Chineses characters begins. The end was a strange and showed the characters for the USA and China "united."

What I most liked about the artwork was that the image used to explain each character was highlighted with either red or blue and formed the character in the drawing (i.e. Yang means goat or sheep and the character for Yang was drawn in red inside the goat's head).

Overall, this book is worth a look.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is kind of a strange book. What begins as a story of a Western boy joining a class of Chinese to learn the language evolves into a display of basic Chinese characters and their meanings. The most clever and instructive aspect of the book is showing how the character is really a pictogram and overlays the character on a picture of the thing or action it describes. This book, published at the end of World War II, is an interesting effort to build an understanding of Chinese culture. As a Caldecott (I'm working my way back from the present to 1938), this is the first book I have encountered that is primarily trying to be instructive. If its intent was to teach Chinese, it was probably a failure. But I think it also fails on the level of being an engaging children's book. (I haven't read any of the other Caldecotts for 1946, so I have no point of comparison yet for that year.)

[Maria Rowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

• 1946 Caldecott Honor Book •

I think this is a fascinating book. It starts with a class of Chinese boys and one American boy learning Chinese characters. The teacher shows them how many of the characters are pictographic and there’s side by side drawings of several Chinese characters and images they represent. I really enjoyed this and thought it was really well done. However, just the first few pages show the boys in school, and I forgot they were even in the story until the last page. I don’t know how instructional this book might be, however I think it does a good job creating interest in learning Chinese, and explains some of the basics of Chinese (such as use of pictograms & a few basic words). Illustrations are good - mostly line drawings with some red or blue highlights.

Materials used: unlisted
Typeface used: unlisted

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book that gives instruction on some basic Chinese characters. While I thought it did a good job explaining these characters, I thought it wasn't sure if it was an instruction book or a story book. The book tries to have a story by introducing an American boy named Peter who wants to learn these characters, but then never goes back to him. I think it would be better if it just stuck to showing how to write characters. one thing I was impressed with was the fact that the Chinese people are not portrayed in stereotypical manner, which is surprising for a book originally published in 1945.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charming picture book about how Chinese characters are formed from pictures. It's not so much an instruction book as it is a book of encouragement, a book that shows that characters aren't as incomprehensible as they might seem at first. It's very respectful to the Chinese culture, and I love that the little boy thinks that since he lives in China, he should learn the language of the country instead of expecting everyone to speak English to him. (Mini-rant: I feel like too many Americans expect everyone in America to speak English because that's the "offical language" [it isn't], but then expect that everyone in foreign countries should speak English to them. Grrrr.)

[Luann · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I admire the intentions of this book, I don't feel like it really taught me to write or even read Chinese. But then that is really beyond the scope of one picture book, despite its title. It does give a very basic introduction to some simple Chinese words and shows how the form of the word often looks like what it means. I really like how the illustrations are drawn with a calligraphy brush just like the Chinese characters. Will I be able to recognize any of the Chinese characters from the book if I see them later? Probably not. :)

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very educational book, but I still can't read Chinese, even if I know how to write a few characters now. I found the subject very interesting, and the illustrations really helped to understand some of the Chinese characters. This is one of my favorite of the lesser-known and out of print Caldecott Honor books. Probably won't be an easy book to find in the library, but well worth hunting down a copy.

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Caldecott Honor Book and definitely one showing its age. It is basically a child's book for chinese characters. It's framing story is that of an American boy in China with his family. But it really has no through story. It's just pictures and characters. It's not bad but it's not great. And the art is only so so. And it's not really worth reading thru. And it's not good enough for a reference book.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

No bad, in that I thought it adequately demonstrated how Chinese characters are like pictographs - each character resembles that which it's trying to represent. The story starts however, with an American boy joining a class of Chinese boys in order to learn Chinese, and his apprehension, and then this aspect of the story is completely abandoned.

[Eireanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book if you want to learn Chinese. The book uses pictures to illustrate why the Chinese symbols are a certain way, to help understand the characters, and allow for better recall. A wonderful introduction to a complex language.

[Mckinley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Explains Chinese characters.
Caldecott honor

[Brindi Michele · Rating 2 out of 5]

1946 Caldecott honor

I actually liked this more than I thought I would, but I still think all the characters look alike.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review dates from my experience of repeatedly checking out our elementary school library's copy of You Can Write Chinese. I loved this book.

My mother was stationed in China during WW2 as a member of the Women's Army Corps. I grew up looking at her photo album pictures of her time in China as well as admiring the silk doll she brought back as a souvenir. I never could figure out her chopsticks.

Because of this family connection, I wanted to learn Chinese, with absolutely no idea about the differences between Mandarin and Cantonese, or any other dialect. Mom had been to China and I wanted to learn something about the country. Enter Kurt Wiese's book. Despite my repeated attempts to absorb the lessons, I am now, sixty years later, left with only the characters for man, tall, mother, sun, moon, and bright -- bright being the combination of the sun and moon. I'm sure a lack of any reinforcement or usage was the culprit in my loss of the harder characters. Still, I have fond memories of using my Prang watercolors to paint Chinese characters.

Now, having been reminded of it, I think I'll share it with the grandkids. I presume they won't have much better luck than I at learning the characters, but maybe they'll enjoy it just the same. Copies of pictures of their great-grandma in China may help foster a connection.

[J. Boo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does a good job explaining some of the "why" of traditional Chinese, with Wiese's illustrations aptly showing how one gets from the picture to the character. Framing story -- and American boy going to school in China -- is quite thin, but present. Wiese himself lived in China for years as a merchant, pre-World War I, so he writes from a place of understanding.

[MaryAnne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading how some of the “Chinese” characters were generated. The illustrations are minimal but sufficient.

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book in the school library when I was in second grade. I loved it! Even as an adult, I remembered some of the Chinese characters. Of course, I didn’t learn to speak Chinese from it, but I certainly learned that there are different writing systems and that all those funny squiggles meant something. Much later, as an adult, I was able to get a copy of the book, and I love the fact that the little American boy wants to help his parents by reading and speaking Chinese. Kind of a flip from the usual idea here that immigrant children have to translate for the parents! I also found it very sweet that the teacher speaks slowly so the little boy can understand him.
This is one book from my childhood that definitely stayed with me and even affected my understanding of other cultures.

[Lorna · Rating 3 out of 5]

1946 Caldecott Honor

Favorite illustration: The opening page with the hillside full of houses and the harbor

Favorite line: The explanation of the Chinese characters used to depict railroad

Kid-appeal: As an adult, I found this book interesting just as background to Chinese character formation, but I am hard pressed to see its merits as a high quality "story" book, even though it's topic was probably groundbreaking at the time of publication. Probably best reserved for a children's Chinese language course.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the exposition of the book, a teacher is teaching his students some Chinese characters. I thought it was super interesting how the characters resemble pictures that relate to the words they stand for. I loved the one with the child and mother that meant good.

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

There wasn't much of a story but it was a cool way to learn some basic characters.