Reading has always been a big thing in my family, thus when I started my own, I wanted to be sure my kid cultivates a habit of reading.

I’m starting a new segment in my blog called “Tuesday Reads” where I share some of the children’s books that I’ve come across that I feel are interesting and worth recommending.

First up is a Mandarin book. English is mainly spoken at home and we’ve been focusing a tad bit too much on English that Emilee is quite handicapped when it comes to Mandarin. I’m not very adapt at choosing and buying Mandarin books, and have been relying a lot on what I borrow from the library. Thank goodness I stumbled upon Hikaya Books which is a subscription service for Mandarin children’s books. Every month now, we receive a box of three selected Mandarin books. Slowly building up that Mandarin library at home. So far we’ve received two boxes and the selections have been great. Perhaps I’ll do a review on the service in another post.

Last month, we received this book in the box which I thought was pretty interesting and had a powerful message behind the story.

Title: 勇敢做自己 You Be You

It kind of had this artsy fartsy feel to it with the colourful fishes drawn swimming all around. In terms of level of reading, it is not quite a story that would get a roving toddler who can’t sit still to sit through it. Some pages had few sentences, while others had long paragraphs.

Frankly speaking, I wouldn’t have picked this out in the library for Emilee. Although Emilee is used to story telling time and can more or less sit through story time, there are times when her butt is just itchy to move around. So, I normally go for books with one or two sentences on the pages. Also, she is not adapt with Mandarin so having too complicated a story is going to be a pain for both me and her. I do need to translate and explain in English.

Nevertheless, I love this book and am recommending it for the message behind it. As the title suggests, the story tells one to be brave to be yourself. You may be short or tall, big or small, colourful or dull, but there’s only one of you and YOU ARE UNIQUE! This is a very powerful message for kids at an impressionable age where they struggle to find their own identity and when they may be exposed to other kids telling them they are not smart or pretty. I think the second message behind this story is a more subtle one. This is a fantastic book to teach kids about diversity. Everyone comes in different packages. We live in a world where everyone is different in their own special way and we should learn to accept and embrace this diversity. This is even more pertinent to a country like Singapore where we have people of different races working and playing together.

Positive and powerful messages printed on the insides of the cover.

This is definitely one book to add to your library even for older kids.