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The Rise of the Monkey King: A Story in Simplified Chinese and Pinyin, 600 Word Vocabulary Level
"The Rise of the Monkey King" is the first book in the 6-volume "Journey to the West" series of stories by Jeff Pepper and Xiao Hui Wang. Other titles include "Trouble in Heaven," "The Immortal Peaches" and "The Young Monk." Sun Wukong, the Handsome Monkey King, is one of most famous characters in Chinese literature and culture. His legendary bravery, his foolish mistakes, his sharp-tongued commentary and his yearning for immortality and spiritual knowledge have inspired hundreds of books, television shows, graphic novels, video games and films. The full story of Sun Wukong's adventures is told in Journey To The West, an epic 2,000 page novel written in the 16th Century by Wu Cheng'en. Journey To The West is probably the most famous and best-loved novel in China and is considered one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature. Its place in Chinese literature is roughly comparable to Homer's epic poem The Odyssey in Western literature. Wikipedia sums up the book's role perfectly, saying "Enduringly popular, the tale is at once a comic adventure story, a humorous satire of Chinese bureaucracy, a spring of spiritual insight, and an extended allegory in which the group of pilgrims journeys towards enlightenment by the power and virtue of cooperation." Journey To The West is a very, very long story, consisting of a hundred chapters. It is loosely based on an actual journey by the Buddhist monk Xuanzang who traveled from the Chinese city of Chang'an westward to India in 629 A.D. and returned 17 years later with priceless knowledge and texts of Buddhism. Over the course of the book Xuanzang and his companions face the 81 tribulations that Xuanzang had to endure to attain Buddhahood. This book, The Rise of the Monkey King, covers the events in the first two chapters of this epic story. We learn how the little stone monkey is born, becomes king of his troop of monkeys, leaves his home to pursue enlightenment, receives the name Sun Wukong (literally, "ape seeking the void") from his teacher, and returns home to defend his subjects from a ravenous monster. Future books in this series will tell more stories from the life of this famous monkey and his companions. Because of this story's importance in Chinese culture, we've made every effort to remain faithful to the original while retelling it in simple language suitable for beginning Chinese learners at the HSK 3 level. We have tried to not add or change anything, though of course we've had to leave out a lot of detail. Wherever we had to use a word or phrase not contained in the 600-word HSK 3 vocabulary (which for example does not include the word "monkey"!) or that has not entered common usage since the HSK lists were created, those new words are defined in footnotes on the page where they first appear. New compound (multi-character) words and expressions are, whenever possible, chosen so that they use characters already in HSK 3. An English version of the story is included for reference at the end, as well as a complete glossary. In the main body of the book, each page of Chinese characters is matched with a facing page of pinyin. This is unusual for Chinese novels but we feel it's important. By including the pinyin, the English version and the glossary, we hope that every reader, no matter what level of mastery they have of the Chinese language, will be able to understand and enjoy the story we tell here. Our website, www.imagin8press.com, contains many helpful study aids, including an audio recording of the book, downloadable word lists, study questions and exercises for classroom use, and links to other books you might enjoy, including other books in this series as they become available.
120 pages, Paperback
Published May 11, 2017
70 people are currently reading
76 people want to read
About the author
Jeff Pepper
40 books11 followersI'm a writer and publisher living in Verona Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh. My company, Imagin8 Press, has published over 100 fiction and nonfiction books for people learning to read Chinese. Our best sellers are an innovative English translation of the Dao De Jing and a 31-volume retelling, in easy Chinese, of the classic novel Journey to the West.
I’m also a lifelong science fiction fan, and started writing sci-fi seriously in 2024. I am delighted that my short story, “Spaceship of Fools,” was accepted by Bewildering Stories. My first full-length sci-fi novel, “Ascent to the Sun,” was published in April 2025.
Before embarking on my current career, I was in the software business. I founded and led three successful companies: ServiceWare, which began in my basement and went public on the NASDAQ; Touchtown, which was acquire by Uniguest; and Tunescribers. I have a degree in computer science from Carnegie-Mellon University, where I taught an undergraduate course in computer programming.
When not sitting in front of a glowing screen, you can probably find me playing competitive pickleball.
I’m also a lifelong science fiction fan, and started writing sci-fi seriously in 2024. I am delighted that my short story, “Spaceship of Fools,” was accepted by Bewildering Stories. My first full-length sci-fi novel, “Ascent to the Sun,” was published in April 2025.
Before embarking on my current career, I was in the software business. I founded and led three successful companies: ServiceWare, which began in my basement and went public on the NASDAQ; Touchtown, which was acquire by Uniguest; and Tunescribers. I have a degree in computer science from Carnegie-Mellon University, where I taught an undergraduate course in computer programming.
When not sitting in front of a glowing screen, you can probably find me playing competitive pickleball.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 24, 2025
This is an abridged and linguistically simplified telling of the first two chapters of Journey to the West. It contains the birth story of Sun Wukong (i.e. the Monkey King) and describes his studies with a sage in an attempt to become immortal.
As someone learning Chinese but at a point where I can only read grammatically and lexically simple content, it's not easy to find reading material that is both fun to read and readable. The discovery of this series was a godsend. It's hard to get more thrilling than the story of the Monkey King, and it helps that I've already read translations - and so have a bit of context to piece together challenging sentences and to avoid the misunderstandings that can arise when reading a new language. It's much easier to be a disciplined reader when reading something that is neither a children's book nor the life story of a preternaturally typical person [which is the usual adult equivalent of a beginner level reader.]
I was pleased by how this book was laid out. Often reading material for learners puts the Chinese characters (hanzi,) the Romanized phonetics (pinyin,) and the English translation all in adjacent rows. While this has its advantages, it also makes it too easy to cheat by eye saccade and not be reading as well as one thinks one is. This book does have all three elements, but it alternates paragraphs of hanzi and pinyin but then puts the translation in an unbroken format after the Mandarin. The book also has a glossary of the book's vocabulary.
Whether you've already read Journey to the West or not, if you're just learning to read Simplified Chinese, I'd highly recommend this book.
As someone learning Chinese but at a point where I can only read grammatically and lexically simple content, it's not easy to find reading material that is both fun to read and readable. The discovery of this series was a godsend. It's hard to get more thrilling than the story of the Monkey King, and it helps that I've already read translations - and so have a bit of context to piece together challenging sentences and to avoid the misunderstandings that can arise when reading a new language. It's much easier to be a disciplined reader when reading something that is neither a children's book nor the life story of a preternaturally typical person [which is the usual adult equivalent of a beginner level reader.]
I was pleased by how this book was laid out. Often reading material for learners puts the Chinese characters (hanzi,) the Romanized phonetics (pinyin,) and the English translation all in adjacent rows. While this has its advantages, it also makes it too easy to cheat by eye saccade and not be reading as well as one thinks one is. This book does have all three elements, but it alternates paragraphs of hanzi and pinyin but then puts the translation in an unbroken format after the Mandarin. The book also has a glossary of the book's vocabulary.
Whether you've already read Journey to the West or not, if you're just learning to read Simplified Chinese, I'd highly recommend this book.
July 21, 2025
Pretty good.
February 3, 2022
It's refreshing to read a Chinese language graded reader that isn't for or about primary school kids, or bears having a picnic.
March 17, 2020
Fun Story, Great Illustrations -- a bit short
Was recommended this by the Mandarin Companion people, and it's really nice! The story is fun and easy to follow, the illustrations are gorgeous, and I think the e-version is more conducive to learning because of the lack of easily accessible pinyin. I will say that like the other reader, I found it a bit short, too -- the story ends at around 16% of the length of the book. Which is fine, honestly. It still made for a couple hours of fun reading -- and there are five more books to go! I was a little disappointed when it ended so abruptly. But this is also one of the few chinese graded readers I've been able to find at this level, and it's quality. Definitely worth checking out.
Was recommended this by the Mandarin Companion people, and it's really nice! The story is fun and easy to follow, the illustrations are gorgeous, and I think the e-version is more conducive to learning because of the lack of easily accessible pinyin. I will say that like the other reader, I found it a bit short, too -- the story ends at around 16% of the length of the book. Which is fine, honestly. It still made for a couple hours of fun reading -- and there are five more books to go! I was a little disappointed when it ended so abruptly. But this is also one of the few chinese graded readers I've been able to find at this level, and it's quality. Definitely worth checking out.
August 21, 2020
Perfect for building vocabulary
It's hard to find graded readers, and this one was very pleasant to read. I have only been learning for three months and this helped me both learn some new vocabulary and build up my confidence! Will definitely be getting the other books in the series, and I really recommend them for other beginners trying to find reading materials.
It's hard to find graded readers, and this one was very pleasant to read. I have only been learning for three months and this helped me both learn some new vocabulary and build up my confidence! Will definitely be getting the other books in the series, and I really recommend them for other beginners trying to find reading materials.
April 2, 2019
Good story - doesn't have too much complicated vocab, but enough to build knowledge. Story in characters, pinyin and english at the back. It also has an audio book version on the website which is super useful for building up listening skills.
November 11, 2021
我完了！ 我很开心🥳
January 29, 2020
The format for this series is brilliant and perfect for someone like me that attended years of weekend Chinese school but am not at the level of reading the newspaper. They also did a great job of pulling out which phrases or names could use some extra help for comprehension with footnotes translating them in more detail. I hope to be able to use this someday when bedtime stories move from picture books to chapter-ish books.
March 21, 2020
I might have to review the new vocabulary but it was really nice, except for the part where it ended abruptly. I also didn't read the pinyin and english part of this book but I'm sure it was as awesome as the Chinese part.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews