Totto-Chan - in Chinese, no less

I've mentioned before that we don't read enough Chinese books in this household. I'm always mindful that the habit needs to be instilled but you know, we just never get to it.

Part of the problem is picking the books. When we're at the library trying to sort through the ineligible (for me) shelves of books with Chinese squiggles, it's always "too hard", "too simple", "got hanyu pinyin", "too boring", "too history book", "too moralistic" or something else.

So when the Chinese tutor lent Lesley-Anne this Chinese book to read over the holidays, it was a welcome gesture.

It's actually the Chinese version of the famous Japanese children's book, Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window. For the uninitiated, the book is a memoir by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, a Japanese UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, who wrote about her unconventional education during World War II at Tomoe Gakuen, a Tokyo elementary school. The protaganist Totto-Chan was expelled from a regular school for disuptive behaviour but was recognised by Mr Kobayashi, the principal of Tomoe Gakuen, as an imaginative and curious child with a thirst for life's wonders. From her eyes, the reader sees the how Mr Kobayashi harnesses his unusual outlook towards learning and children to help his wards enjoy a happy childhood and appreciate the simple things in life despite the war.

Originally published in 1981, the book has been translated into numerous languages and remains the best selling book in Japanese history.

I've read the English version (in fact, I'm sure I have it somewhere but can't seem to locate it) and while it's a charming and heart-warming story, my frank opinion is that the style of writing is a little boring. I attribute this purely to the translated text - I'm pretty sure it's much more engaging in its original language.

The Chinese version holds more promise, probably because the Japanese and Chinese languages have more in common in terms of sentence structure and form than Japanese and English. Lesley-Anne is enjoying the Chinese version. To her, many Chinese books focus too much on the description of settings which is uninteresting whereas this book tells the story with much dialogue and in a more narrative manner.

So this is one of my rare recommendations for Chinese books. It's a fun story, though it's probably more suitable for girls. If you need some Chinese reading material for your kids, you might like to look this one up at the library.