Cheng & Tsui Company

How far away is the sun?; and other essays.

This second in a five-volume series of graded readers for learners of Chinese is for students in the first semester of a second year Chinese course. Like other volumes, it contains ten lessons, each anchored on a text about 500 characters long and introducing about 30 new vocabulary words. Exercises are provided in a choice of formats. Answer keys and a vocabulary index are at the back of the book. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The Way of Chinese characters; the origins of 400 essential words = [Han zi zhi dao].

Wu (Chinese, Pomona College) presents a text for learners and teachers of Chinese at all levels, containing 400 of the most basic Chinese characters which also correspond with the glossary of the best-selling textbook Integrated Chinese, Second Edition, Level 1, Part 1 used at colleges and high schools across the U.S. For each entry, the character is displayed in its various ancient scripts, and information is included about the character's classification (e.g. pictograph, explicit character) indicating how the character was constructed. Accompanying b&w line-drawing illustrations help readers connect the characters' pictographic elements to their meanings, both ancient and modern. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)