Title: 糖果姐姐說故事 Set 1 (tang2 guo3 jie3 jie5 shuo gu4 shi4)/Candy Sister Telling Stories
Publisher: Christian Cosmic Light Holistic Care
Level: Children
Includes: 16 CDs, 48 stories, no book
Summary: This first (out of four) collection tells Old Testament stories from Adam and Eve through Samuel, covering 15 major Bible characters. (Eg: Cain and Abel, Noah, David, etc.)
Each segment is about 12-15 minutes long and has the following format: Candy Sister introduces a story, tells the story, and then ends with a 甜蜜的小叮嚀 (tian2 mi4 de5 xiao3 ding ning2) or Sweet Exhortation.
The second set is from Saul to Jesus. The third and fourth volumes have translated fantasy and children’s stories.
Sample Pages:
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars
5 Minute Review: There can be no doubt of the high production values of this set. The narration, the voice actors, the classical music, everything about it is top notch.
So, why the 3 star rating? (Which incidentally, isn’t a bad rating.)
Mostly because my kids were terrified and/or didn’t understand a lot of the stories. They were terrified (they were 3-5 at the time) because Old Testament stories are full of fighting and death. Even when “sanitized” for children. And these CDs do not sanitize.
Also, I am somewhat dubious of what the producers deem to be the lesson learned from each story – as well as how they choose to tell the story (in terms of what gets included and what gets excised). But that is to be expected in any translation, biblical or otherwise.
It is, however, a great summary of the main Bible stories. So if your kids can understand Chinese really well, and are familiar with the characters, and are familiar with the Bible, it is a good supplement.
Let’s just say that my Chinese was not good enough and the only reason I knew what was going on is because I have a really good working knowledge of the Old Testament.
Definitely for older kids (like 8+?) and for fluent or near fluent kids. This is not appropriate for introducing Chinese to beginners or non-speakers.
Hope that helps! I think the website might offer samples to download or listen to online.
2 Comments
I’m very interested in this, except not that it was scary for your kids. Do you know if the New Testament stories are better? Or do you know of any other resource for Biblical stories in Mandarin?
I imagine they will be as blunt as the OT ones. Lol. There are lots of different kid bibles, etc. But I haven’t looked much other than buy really old cartoons on dvd that I remember watching as a kid in church. Sorry’