A collection of children's books written by New Zealand authors have been sent to China to assist primary school children learning English as a second language.
The Sunshine Books series hopes to engage Chinese children, helping them to understand the context of words through the use of illustrations and creative writing.
The first intake of stories made up of 18 books includes the works of legendary writers Joy Cowley and the late Margaret Mahy.
Director of the project Dame Wendy Pye worked with education experts in Beijing to identify which stories would work best with youngsters.
"Normally when people take books apart they really edit them and cut out all the wonderful words and language that we use, but on this occasion they didn't because they want Chinese children to develop creative thinking."
One Chinese-born New Zealand resident Paul Pang, who began learning English at school in China at age six, told 1 NEWS he believed the books would help young students to engage with the English language.
"Using images and stories will attract children's attention and for those learning English this will be very helpful."
The series is a collaboration between New Zealand-based Wendy Pye Publishing and one of China’s largest foreign language publishers, the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
- by India Leishman
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