Go to school and read: The Chinese Children's Encyclopedia

Author: Zhao Xiupin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: This is an encyclopedia that children can start reading from school, designed for children who are about to start school or in the early stages of schooling, with an age range of 6 to 9 years old. The set is in a large format (12-inch), hardcover, full-color, and includes 4 volumes, totaling 780 pages, priced at 196 yuan. The content is divided into 8 sections: "Zoo," "Botanical Garden," "Space Museum," "Science Palace," "Culture and Sports Hall," "Earth Village," "Chinese Homeland," and "World Park." Every two sections form one book, and each book has two covers (front and back). This set has four outstanding features.
1. An encyclopedia that makes learning fun for children
Chinese children often lose interest in learning before school because they only choose what they are exposed to, find interesting, and believe is useful. After school, they are forced to learn things they haven’t encountered, don’t find interesting, or don’t think are useful, causing their interest in learning to fade and even leading to hatred of school. The purpose of this book is to help children overcome the barrier of starting school and maintain their interest in knowledge. From an educational perspective, we must teach children to categorize knowledge, but strict scientific categorization doesn’t align with their interests. Therefore, we have designed the following carefully.
(1) Eight tangible and concrete book titles: "Chinese Homeland," "World Park," "Earth Village," "Space Museum," "Zoo," "Botanical Garden," "Science Palace," and "Culture and Sports Hall." These titles take children on a journey to these eight places.
(2) Two small red and black footprints. They appear on the covers and also on the page numbers in the main text, symbolizing that children can explore the maze of science on their own—a lively and vivid design.
(3) Two cartoon characters, Qiqi and Miao Miao. They are the guides of the entire set, leading their friends (the readers) to discover the wonders of knowledge.
(4) Exquisite original illustrations. Every page of the book features exquisite original illustrations. These images transform the knowledge children encounter into tangible things, and the illustrations themselves are aesthetically pleasing.
2. An encyclopedia that can be read at least 7 times
Children aged 6 to 9 have two main cognitive characteristics:
(1) Short attention spans and brief periods of excitement.
(2) Guessing and piecing together information. Children may not get answers right the first time, but they can read multiple times to refine their understanding. What they discover through guessing and piecing together stays with them longer. This is a key aspect of child cognition, and we must acknowledge and preserve it. Therefore, we have designed the following.
(1) Breaking down knowledge into small chunks. The knowledge is divided into bite-sized pieces, with each point taking only a few minutes to read. By the time a child’s excitement fades, the next point is ready, keeping their interest sustained. These short, concise knowledge blocks are divided into 7 parts in this book: images, captions, topic summaries, key points, interactive elements, 6W (Who, What, When, Where, Why, How), and 3b (English box, question basket, idiom bag).
(2) Some text is annotated with pinyin. For early school-aged children, learning to recognize characters is the main task, so this book is written with pinyin. However, only the knowledge summaries are pinyin-annotated, while other parts are not. If everything were in pinyin, children wouldn’t learn to recognize characters. The unannotated content allows children to guess and piece together the meaning.
3. A book for parent-child reading together
Before and after children start school, significant changes occur in the family. Before school, parents often see themselves as teachers, engaging in frequent communication and interaction with their children. After school, many parents believe that the teacher’s role shifts to the school, and their task is simply to follow the teacher’s instructions and check their children daily. As a result, parent-child communication weakens, and children feel less close to their parents. Another change in recent years is that when children ask parents questions, parents may respond with, "You’re too young to understand; you’ll learn it later." Now, we often hear, "Mom, you don’t know this," because new things are constantly emerging, and children know more than their parents. If a parent says "You don’t know this" 10 times, their authority may waver, and the moral transmission in the family could be hindered. Thus, parents may feel that today’s children are harder to teach. To address this, we have designed the "idiom bag" feature in the book. Children may not understand idioms, so they directly ask their parents. If parents explain 300+ idioms to their children, they won’t listen. If children ask 300+ times and receive 300+ answers, it can lead to two outcomes: (1) Promoting parent-child reading together, or (2) Strengthening parents’ authority 300+ times. A stronger parental authority benefits family harmony and moral transmission.
4. A book that pays attention to every detail
(1) Designed with reversible covers to cater to children’s love of games. Each of the four books has two covers—one front and one back—both equally functional and aesthetically pleasing. The book can be opened from either side, and every page is visually appealing.
(2) Printed on matte art paper to protect children’s eyes. This paper doesn’t glare, beautifully displays the images, and safeguards children’s eyesight.
(3) Rounded corners on the hardcover to ensure safety. While rounded corners increase production costs, they are safer and won’t scratch children’s skin.
In summary, this book is an encyclopedia that makes learning fun, one that can be read at least 7 times, one for parent-child reading together, and one that pays attention to every detail. Our research shows that children who have read The Chinese Children’s Encyclopedia (ages 9–15) perform better than those who haven’t—they are more proactive, open-minded, and ask and answer questions. We believe that children who grow up with The Chinese Children’s Encyclopedia: For School-Aged Readers will also develop better than those who haven’t.