In the Leaves

In the Leaves
Huy Voun Lee (2005)


In the Leaves is a story about a Chinese boy teaching his friends Mandarin Chinese through symbols! It is a unique read as the reader, along with the friends in the book, learn how symbols in Chinese represent words, rather than letters spelling words.  This book teaches 10 new symbols to the reader: pig, family, mouth, harmony, rice, grain, fire, autumn, field, and sprout.  The story teller teaches his friends how these items are important in the Chinese culture, and how some symbols are based off one-another.  Besides having the symbols in the book to represent the words, there is a pronunciation guide in the back.  I really liked this story, because it was told through a little boy's perspective to his friends about why farming in the fall is important to the Chinese culture, while also expanding on the ideas of the importance of family, friends, and food.  This book is also great for differentiation for students: lots of visuals and little text to help get the points across to those who may have a difficult time reading words.  I would use this in a K-6 classroom  Some lessons that could be used from this book are multi-cultural/diversity lessons, art lessons, etc. I really recommend this book, as well!