Volume One begins with a short history of Chinese writing, and the various ways Chinese characters can be constructed. This is followed by 176 pages of fun – one character to a page.

Volume One includes many of the most common Chinese characters. They are presented in a logical progression, so that often each character builds on the next. For example, the first character is ? n?, which means “woman.” The second character is ? z? means “child”, and the third character ? h?o is a combination of these previous two characters, with the explanation that a woman with a child represents goodness.

If the character has evolved through history, its progression is shown through a series of drawings, so that its relationship with the object it portrays can be clearly seen.

The character profile is followed by a selection of related words and phrases and an example sentence.

The vivid descriptions of each character are very useful for memorizing their structure. Here, for example, is the description of the character ?/? bèi:

This character is a pictograph of the precious cowrie shell. Used in early feudal times as money, it came to mean also “valuables”. The regular form (?) shows a live shell with feelers; but today, like the money it once represented, the shell reveals its hollowness in the simplified form (?).

My only complaint about this book is its exclusive use of simplified characters in the vocabulary section. The traditional forms are presented in the illustrations, but it would be nice if there was a traditional version.

But even with the simplified characters, the stories and explanations of each character are a great aid to learning Chinese characters. I have only seen Volume One of this series, but Volumes Two and Three are said to follow the same format. Volume Three includes an index of all the 480 characters covered by this series.

I highly recommend this series to anyone interested in Mandarin Chinese. Even if you know all these characters already, some of the history may be new to you. And the amusing stories offer a new perspective on the Chinese writing system.