Book Review: Happy Reading 456 樂讀456

You can see all of my Chinese books related posts at the Books Page.  You can see some of the inside pages on my Instagram account.

Age：8 (Astroboy),
Grade Level: mostly 3rd and 4th, some 5th.  8-12 years
Publisher: 天下雜誌／親子天下

Reading 456 is 親子天下’s solution to books after Reading 123.  In their words, Reading 123. covers 5k-20k character books, and Reading 456 covers 20k-60k.  The levels are kind of iffy because when they first started, their literature says 20k-40k, but now the newer published books refer to 2 levels,  基礎 beginning books 20k-40k characters, and 進階 advanced books of 40k-60k.  Given where I think Thumper is at right now with her upper elementary reading, I’m pegging these to be 3rd-4th grade books, though some may be also 5th grade.

There seems to be some overlap in leveling between Reading 456 and Reading 456+.   It used to be that all of Reading 456+ has no zhuyin and all of Reading 456 has zhuyin.  But some of the recent Reading 456 books also don’t have zhuyin.  My guess is that they’re trying to move future Reading 456+ level books into Reading 456 advanced 進階 level.  But I can’t be certain, because Reading 456+ supposedly goes up to 80k characters.

This will be my first iteration of the Reading 456 review.  I plan to update this post as Astroboy gradually gets into the series.  Right now, I mostly want to document the series titles and levels as a reference for myself.

First Impressions

We haven’t gone through many books in the series.  Or rather, Thumper read some while I wasn’t looking and refused to read others, so I don’t quite know how I feel about the majority of the books.

But!  I now know why I wasn’t recommending this series left and right to everyone.  In fact, right now I would say, buy mini sets in the series but not the whole series.  I may change my mind after Astroboy goes through all the books.

Why?  Because Reading 456 attempted to guide the child from the fun books in Reading 123, to reading longer books, books with complicated plots, more descriptive background setups, or more reflective stories.  Family stories are no longer about the cute memorable childhood you had in the 我家 series in Reading 123, but more about family conflicts like 我的爸爸是流氓.  Even 12 zodiac animal tales in the 動物狂想曲 mini series have some meaning (per this review on 戰馬追風).

This is probably why Thumper didn’t love these books.  She wasn’t quite ready for these deeper stories, in fact I don’t think she is quite ready still.

Thankfully, in the last few years, Reading 456 has published new books that bridged this content level gap from Reading 123.  Those are the books Astroboy worked through.  He read through 7 book 妖怪醫院 series and the almost 300 page 松鼠們的瘋狂遊戲 book.   When I offered 我的小狗咕嚕嚕 he said “I want to read books with some illustration.”  So I showed him 神祕圖書館偵探 series and he liked those.

If your child has a very high comprehension level, you could use this set to lead them to the upper grade level books.  But if the child is reading this set at level or reading it earlier than recommended age, you may have to supplement with other similarly leveled books before you can move onto upper elementary or even more mature 4th grade books.

Once we’re done with these still fun but twice as long books, we will probably go somewhere else to find more similar length but illustrated books before we come back to this set.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Chinese Reading Levels

Reposting the reading levels.  Keep in mind, just like English, character count isn’t everything.  Sometimes the maturity and content level are higher even though the character count is low.  Most books in the Reading 456 series are in Level 4 & 5, 3rd and 4th grade.

• • • Bridging books (6-8 yrs old)

• • • • Level 0 (0-2500 characters) (32 pages)  Kindergarten, first Grade, 25L

• • • • Level 1 (2500-5000 characters) 1:1 ratio (~64 pages), first Grade, 100L

• • • • Level 2 (5k-10k characters) 2:1 ratio (64-128 pages), 2nd grade, 200L

• • • Level 3 (10k-20k characters) 3:1 ratio, 2nd grade, 350L

• • Advanced Bridging Books (8-10 yrs old, ~3rd-4th grade)

• • • Level 4 (20-40k characters) (150+ pages) mostly no illustration, series books, 3rd grade, 550L

• • Level 5 (40k-60k characters) 4th grade, 700L 

Reading Order

Here’s the order that Astroboy took through the series.

• 妖怪醫院 (highly recommend!)
• 松鼠們的瘋狂遊戲
• 神祕圖書館偵探 series (I don’t know why Astroboy loved it.  But he read it 3 times.)
• 毒牙蛇找朋友 & 動物狂想曲 (Zodiac series)
• 黑貓魯道夫 #1-#2 (Rudolph the Black Cat) Nov 2018
• 奇想西遊記 #1-#4 (Monkey King Reimagined) Dec 2018
• 黑貓魯道夫 #3-#4 (Rudolph the Black Cat) Dec 2018

List of Reading 456 books

As I mentioned above, the Reading 456 series is a mess right now because of how they are leveling their newly published books, as well as the disconnect between character count and content maturity level sometimes.  Most of the level is a guess by me, except the books that Astroboy and Thumper has read.   will change it as I go along.  The Graded Reading Level is my guess.  The Character Count is given by the publisher.

Mini Series Description and Review

妖怪醫院 – Does your kid like Harry Potter? Pokémon? Manga? Then this is the set for them.  This is the set that Astroboy wants to re-read at his age.

You know how when you read Harry Potter book 1, the words are succinct and simple, but you have a very clear image based on the description? These books are like that. I can visualize every scene as if I’m watching a cartoon.

The monster world has got specific rules and is clearly detailed. The illustrations are right there just as you’re reading and wondering exactly what it looks like. For example, they’re trying to tickle a slug-like looking plant so it can release its spores. Right as you’re wondering what that plant looks like, you turn the page and there’s an illustration.

Thumper went all 7 books in the set yesterday. Astroboy didn’t want to read it till I read the first 2 chapters to him. Once he started, he was hooked.

At 120+ pages each book, I thought it was strange that it’s a Reading 456 series instead of Reading 123.  But, the main character is 12 in the book.  Even though the book is short the content is definitely for an older audience, the way it spends quite a few pages to set up the story, the more detailed descriptions of scenes and characters, it is a jump for kids used to simpler writing.

But for Astroboy, who finished all of Dahl, it is around the same level. So 3rd grade. There’s a lot of reference to Japanese culture but the good thing is there is a whole section at the end of each book talking about these references and how different cultures have the same thing. For example, one book was on monster spirits in Japanese culture. Another was on helper spirits in different cultures.

松鼠們的瘋狂遊戲 –

This 250+ page book is a very good transition after Reading 123, provided your kid is used to reading long stories.  Otherwise they may balk.  It’s kind of like the Dahl books: simple, fun stories that just happen to be very very long.

神祕圖書館偵探 – This is a mystery series.  The page count is lower, at around 120 pages each.  Again, this could have been in Reading 123 given the page count.  But there’s probably only illustration every few pages and it’s an introduction to the mystery genre for kids.  Story is kind of a mix of mystery Magic Treehouse style, mixed with a dash of fairy tales. You’ve got a sister brother pair who goes into the magical library to solve mysteries which often have fairy tale elements..

Astroboy says the books got better and better with the 4th one being the best and the first book his least favorite. Since we couldn’t find any other books to read, he is now re-reading the books (“I will skip book #1 because it is the least interesting”)

夢想甜點屋 － If you have a child who likes baking or if you want to learn about making Japanese sweets, the Japanese traditions of sweets, and tea ceremony, this is a series for that purpose.  Reading it totally reminded me of the Japanese dramas I used to watch, for example, Strawberry on the Shorcake or Andou Natsu.  The book itself is super heavy on dialogue, so it’s almost like watching a drama.

This set is suited for 3rd grade and up.  It’s a good way to learn very specific Chinese vocabulary and characters you don’t normally see related to tea ceremony, with zhuyin!   But I couldn’t finish the book personally but Thumper was really into it when she picked it up.  I’m not sure Astroboy will enjoy the heavy dialogue.  And given the vocabulary, it would be suited better for grade 3.5 instead of just 3.

黑貓魯道夫

Each is almost 300 pages long! But he kept saying “很好看！”. It’s really right up Astroboy’s ally, kind of funny and adventurous, and an animal story.

It’s the story of a cat who accidentally traveled on a truck to Tokyo and his adventures trying to get home. I read the first 3 chapters and I liked the humor as well.  Though it can take awhile to get into.  I had to cajole Astroboy to read the first 2 chapters before he can say he doens’t want to read it.

This would be a good series to use to help lead a child into longer books that may take awhile to set up and feel boring when you first read it.  I’ve noticed that this is one of those humps in reading, transitioning into longer and complicated stories.

But I could not get Thumper to like it or read it. I thought she would because, animal story, even though she’s probably past this reading-level wise. She’s tried this set of 4 books multiple times and always dropped it.

It really just goes to show you that you never know with kids and it’s good to have a selection. Chinese books are so expensive and I always feel bad when they aren’t read. But I try to remember what Mandarin mama said, that she expects 20% of her books to not get read, so I feel better.

奇想西遊記

Astroboy completed this series before finishing Rudolph the Black Cat. Probably because I would have never thought he can understand these books..
.
And he probably doesn’t. He doesn’t know a lot of these historical fiction vocabularies to begin with. But that’s what second reads are for right? .
.
Astroboy really likes the series. I mean, who doesn’t like the Monkey King right? It helped he’s already read two other versions I think. He’s starting to compare them and can tell me what is not in each book..
.
I’m now looking for an ever harder version for the next iteration. I used to be against reading abridged versions of books because often my kids don’t want to read the real thing . Why be in a hurry for them to read the story?.
.
But the Monkey King seem to be one of those where the story is redacted a lot so every higher level version adds something new to the story and they don’t get bored?.
.