I had the joy of making the trailer for this unique book, which you can watch below. I say it was a joy to make  because Patricia Caprio’s art is delightful and lends itself so easily to video. The expressions on the frog and the turtle make even grown up ‘children’ smile. I love the fresh colors and smooth lines.

What’s really unique about this book though is that it’s bilingual—English and Chinese. The text is translated into traditional Chinese characters and Pinyin, which is a phonetic translation in the English alphabet. The story is based on an ancient Chinese idiom. Folklore tales often make the best children’s books for their simplicity and universality. “The Frog in the Well” is no exception. Children will love the repetitious text that they can follow along with, as you can see from the excerpt below (pg 22-23) “The ocean is big. The ocean is deep. The ocean is wide. The ocean is blue.” But the repetition does more than delight. It helps English children (and adults) pick words out of the Chinese text.

Language fascinates children, even foreign languages. Very young children might not even realize that other languages have different alphabets. For older children, “The Frog in the Well,” would be a great launching point for world studies.

“The Frog in the Well” is now available in hardcover, but look for it soon on DVD where children can hear both languages aloud and follow along as frog learns a lesson about the big wide world outside his well.