Chinese Jump Rope

by Anne Akrs Johnson (Editor)

Complete rules to nine classic games, spiral-bound for playground referral, along with two Chinese jump ropes in brilliant colors. Plus instructions for making your own rope out of rubber bands.

Genres: Childrens, Games

66 pages, Spiral-bound

First published March 1, 1997

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

A whimsical kids book containing the rules to lots of Chinese jump rope games. I hadn’t heard of Chinese jump rope before reading this book, and when I read this when I was a kid I wanted to play all the games. They are mostly games of skill, trying not to miss jumps or mess up movements. It takes some acrobatics to play these games. Most of them involve wrapping the rope around two other people’s ankles, but if you had no friends like me, you could wrap it around chair legs (my advice. Not in the book).

This Chinese jump rope book seems like it’s from a different time, when girls played playground games during long recesses, girl’s and boy’s games were different, and people actually called stuff “Chinese jump rope” or “Chinese finger trap”. I was a child in the modern world, where I scampered around on playground equipment instead of playing jump rope, Chinese or otherwise. However, this book is still fun.

The book comes with two Chinese jump ropes, one big and one small. Now that I’m older, the big one seems normal. The art is whimsical, the games were fun, and Klutz didn’t fail me with this book at all.