In this new feature, we ask a family that’s passionate about reading to share with us their love of books, by each nominating a favorite read. If you’d like to be featured in a future issue, then contact us on editor@beijing-kids.com, via our website www.beijing-kids.com, or via WeChat. We’d love to hear from you!
For the Xu family, coming back to China was returning full circle. Their grandparents moved to Taiwan, and from there to New Zealand. Now they are based in Beijing, but their business as curriculum developers takes them all across Asia to work with teachers, school leaders and education providers. They wanted to share this adventure with their children, so as educators homsechooling was a natural choice for them. As Gianni says, “When you have delayed flights instead of school assemblies, noses sniffing and snuffling instead of classroom shuffling feet, audio and paper books are your besties!”
Gianni Xu
We were clueless about parenting when Ethan first gave us his 9 months notice. Showing Up For Life by Bill Gates senior stood out from shelf because it wasn’t a conventional parenting book. The book dabs into grand global issues that affect our future little earthlings. It entices you to see how little mundane routines valued by one of the smartest grandpas in the world helped raise one of the smartest entrepreneurs in the world. The book inspired us to focus on the joy of reading at the early stages of our children’s development.
Vivian Xu
Like all mothers, we all need some downtime to catch up on the latest episodes of the soul-saving Korean drama. The Amazon Way by Japanese author Masayaki Sato is a great book to help you create some of that time by becoming a bit more creative with productivity. It is a book translated from the original Japanese; I have always enjoyed translated books as a way to understand the moral compasses of different cultures. Amazon has not earned a strong footing in China, but it is still interesting to read about how they are evolving.
Ethan Xu (age 9)
This is torture! Why would anybody pick only one favorite book! It is just too hard. Well, if I really, really, really have to, I would choose The Day My Butt Went Psycho! I laughed my socks off! But I wasn’t wearing socks all the time. I think the book really taught me about “sympathy”. It means how other people feel, or put myself in other people’s “butt”!
Edward Xu (age 8)
Arlo Needs Glasses is my favorite picture book. I am too old for the book now but I still like it. There are many things you can play with in the book and it tells you wearing glasses is cool. I don’t wear glasses but my mom does. I like other books from the author too. I am really happy to know I can meet the author in the book fair.
This article appeared in the beijingkids September 2019 Family Foodies issue
PHOTO CREDITS: Uni You
