乌鸦面包店 Crow Bakery (Set of 5)

A delightful set! A family of crows open various shops and goes through tough times in life together. With ingenuity, common sense and a lot of hard work, they open up many shops and learn many things together. These books touch on economic and entrepreneurial concepts in an easy-to-understand story with tons of details to pore over.

Perfect for primary school kids and even adults!

 加古里子 really wanted to educate the next generation on the importance of people helping each other, so he weaved this theme throughout the series. One unforgettable scene in 乌鸦面包店 was the crow papa and mama with 4 little crows working hard kneading dough together - they found strength in unity and their bakery's business took a positive turn thereafter.

The different temperaments and talents of the crows and other animals are like a little reflection of the community around us, with our own stories. There is even a wedding depicted in one of the titles!

Inculcating financial savviness to young ones was dear to  加古里子's heart, and he included financial literacy and entrepreneurial skills into the storyline. For example, in 乌鸦蔬果店 the crows arranged their merchandise neatly so as to attract more attention, and tried different pricing strategies like uniform pricing, each item going for 3 dollars. Does it remind you of real life businesses, like Daiso? 乌鸦天妇罗店 gives us a glimpse of what it takes to be a disciple of the master chef, and how the crows overcome manpower shortage. More details are in the Parents Handbook that comes along with the set! Even grownups are learning so many life lessons from these books.

What I appreciate most about 乌鸦面包店 bookset is that the lessons are not heavy-handed and preachy, never given on a silver platter. 加古里子 is a master storyteller and has a way of making you think and learn in an engaging way, and the lessons stay with you long after the pages have been flipped and the books have been closed.

Books in the set:
乌鸦面包店 Crow Bakery
乌鸦糕点店 Crow Pastry Shop
乌鸦天妇罗店 Crow Tempura Shop
乌鸦蔬果店 Crow Fruit and Veggie Shop
乌鸦荞麦面店 Crow Soba Noodle Shop

Fun fact: the first book  乌鸦面包店 was written in 1973, and the other 4 books were published 40 years later in 2013, when 加古里子 was 87 years old! Super respect!

Recommended for Ages: 5-12
No. of Books: 5
Pages: 155
Format: Softcover
Language: Simplified Chinese
Author / Illustrator: 加古里子
Translated by: 猿渡静子
Translated from: Japanese

Additional resources upon purchase:

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Our latest Chinese Rave alert! #乌鸦面包店 系列 Initially I thought this might be too childish for my pri go-ers, however after Linxin @mystorytreasury recommendations, I decided to buy this set from her. The humble beginnings of papa and Mama crows feeding their 4 younglings while managing their bakery left us anticipating for their future. Even their names matched their bright colours perfectly, where my boys mused at 小巧克力，小柠檬，小苹果 和 小年糕. My eyes savored the childlike and delicately painted illustrations, while the kids were enticed by the lovely food drawn. Creativity is splattered throughout the book in their entrepreneurial ways of doing work doubling up with great valuable lessons on unity as strength. Even my boys were excited to take turns and go through the first book today with Ximalaya audio. They were happy to repeat the same story thrice.😄 you can listen to the entertaining audio at my insta story. That's what the boys were chuckling about! You can even listen to the series in Ximalaya and decide if this series are worth buying. This whole month the kids have been reading #汤姆 series tirelessly! Now I can't wait to complete the whole set together with the kids and learn together in Chinese the entrepreneurial and kampong spirit. #chinesebooksforkid #chinesebookreview #chinesepicturebooks

A post shared by Angie Yeow (@growinghearts123) on Apr 12, 2019 at 6:43am PDT