Bao & Bun's Bilingual Journey

It’s hard to believe I’m about to host the 5th in-person book club this week. It’s starting to feel a bit blurry why I even started this event. I think I’ve always wanted to create a space where kids could use Chinese while doing activities together. We just went to MoMA for their Mandarin tour last weekend, and we’ll head to New Jersey for another cultural exchange activity this weekend. But both events might not happen again for a while.

When I first started the book club, I knew kids wouldn’t be able to sit down and have a structured discussion about the same book. So instead, I designed it so that each kid would share a book they like. Even that was challenging since their summarizing skills aren’t as developed as adults. That’s why I used Guavarama’s book club template, which helps parents work with their kids to fill in some basic details about the book. The kids could then use that as a guide to share with the group. With this structure in place, families were able to follow along, and kids started sharing more comfortably.

Over time, some families developed their own ways of sharing. Instead of filling out the book report, some parents would hold up a book, flip through the pages, and have their kids give a brief summary of each page. I really love that method—it’s not just about book sharing anymore; it’s helping kids practice public speaking in Chinese. Some kids who were initially shy and hid behind their parents eventually opened up. After a few tries and getting to know the other kids, they became more comfortable and started sharing more each time.

Starting with the 3rd book club, I introduced a new activity called Reading Relay. In addition to having kids share books, they would take turns reading a book together—one kid per page until the book was finished. We used 亮亮的成長, a popular early reader, and I assigned each child one or two pages to read at the event. It went so smoothly both times that the kids finished the book in just five minutes!

That’s why I’m trying something new this time—Reading Dialogue. I found a series of books where two friends have conversations about friendship, daily life, and even some deeper philosophical topics. The dialogue is written in different colored text for each character. Like the relay, I assigned roles to each kid and asked families to practice at home. It’s a bit more challenging, but I’m hoping that practicing back-and-forth reading will make it more engaging. Fingers crossed it works out!