可爱的鼠小弟 Little Mouse Chinese Picture Books for Children

If I had to pick one series that we have enjoyed most in the past decade, 可爱的鼠小弟 has been a timeless gem, even years after my children outgrew the reading level. When my children were toddlers, I promised myself I would stop buying Chinese picture books because we already had tons. However, the 可爱的鼠小弟 Little Mouse series was recommended by so many families, and I’m here to join the chorus.

Review of 可爱的鼠小弟 Little Mouse Series

可爱的鼠小弟 was originally published in Japan over 50 years ago, written by Japanese author Yoshiwo Nakae and illustrated by Noriko Ueno. The heartwarming stories follow a little boy mouse with a red knit vest who learns about friendship, courage, and sharing with his animal friends. I believe the complete series has 22 books, but some bookstores may only sell individual copies or partial sets. Here are the titles:

Little Mouse’s Tank Top 鼠小弟的小背心
Little Mouse Craves Apple 想吃苹果的鼠小弟
Little Mouse’s Other Tank Top 鼠小弟的又一件小背心
Little Mouse and Sister 鼠小弟和鼠小妹
Little Mouse, Little Mouse 鼠小弟，鼠小弟
Little Mouse’s Tank Top Strikes Again 又来了！鼠小弟的小背心
Little Mouse’s Birthday 鼠小弟的生日
Little Mouse Broke the Mug 打破杯子的鼠小弟
Little Mouse and Big Elephant 鼠小弟和大象哥哥
Little Mouse On the Swing 鼠小弟荡秋千
Little Mouse Goes to a Concert 鼠小弟和音乐会
Little Mouse Changes his Tank Top 换换吧！鼠小弟的小背心
Mouse Brother and Muffin 鼠小弟和松饼
Make Snowman 鼠小弟堆雪人
Again Mouse Brother and Muffin 又来了！鼠小弟和松饼
Christmas 鼠小弟的圣诞节
Gift 鼠小弟的礼物
Hide and Seek 鼠小弟捉迷藏
Seesaw 鼠小弟玩跷跷板
What To Do When You Grow Up 鼠小弟，长大以后做什么？
It Can Only Be Red 只能是红的！鼠小弟的小背心
Go To Seaside 鼠小弟去海边

What we love about 可爱的鼠小弟 (Little Mouse Series)

Each story is both cute and funny while offering a meaningful life lesson. Most pages contain only one or two lines of simple text, making the books approachable for beginner readers. The repetitive sentence structures also help children become familiar with new words and phrases throughout the story. For example, my daughter used to mix up 错 (cuò / wrong) and 借 (jiè / borrow). After reading a story that frequently used 借, she now knows the word well.

The understated, black-and-white pencil illustrations are a true work of art. Although the stories are fictional, the animals are drawn to real-life proportions. At the same time, their facial expressions and body language imitate humans in such a wonderfully dynamic way, telling a story of their own. Some of the illustrations may feel a little abstract for toddlers, though, and I’ll share some examples in the photos below.

I also appreciate the clean layout of each page. The backgrounds are plain and uncluttered, so nothing distracts from the text or illustrations. Since the words and illustrations are placed on separate pages, the reader can choose to focus on the text or the pictures.

Try this: Teach Your Child a Second Language at Home with 5 Key Steps

Things that bug me

The font is small so that it’s aesthetically balanced with the illustrations. But from a functional standpoint, my aging eyes often have to squint to read the words!

Sometimes, the background color adds another challenge, such as black font on a brown page.

I wish the font were larger, like our other favorite books (Shapes, iSuper Science), so budding readers can see the strokes of each Chinese character.

Reading Level

According to the description from 南海出版公司 (Nanhai Publishing Company), the books are recommended for children aged 3 to 6 years for parent-child reading, and 7 years and older for independent reading. However, I first purchased the books when my daughter was four, and my son was one.

When my daughter first read these books, she had memorized 800 to 900 Chinese characters (I lost track after we finished 四五快读). Most of these stories were easy for her to read, perfect for building confidence and improving reading speed. At that time, I could read about 500 characters, but I didn’t have to check the dictionary too often.

Although my son is now a 3rd grader devouring middle-grade novels on his own, he still asks me to read 可爱的鼠小弟 for nostalgia at bedtime. We still love admiring the adorably expressive illustrations!

Where to Buy 可爱的鼠小弟

Simplified Chinese

Buy Set 1 At JOJO Learning

Buy Set 2 At JOJO Learning

Traditional Chinese Chinese

Buy at Books.com.Tw

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Mandarin audio narration of 可爱的鼠小弟

Good news! You can watch/listen to the 鼠小弟 series on the 咔哒故事-儿童睡前故事大全 app and the Ximalaya app here! Personally, we prefer real books for the kids, but the app is helpful for my kids to hear the narration from a native speaker.

We play it on my phone and then turn the phone face down to follow along with the real book. It’s also hard to appreciate the detailed illustrations in the app in contrast to the physical books.

Try this: How Kids And Parents Can Learn Chinese From Audiobooks

Video of my daughter reading 鼠小弟

Here is a video of my daughter reading part of Little Mouse Broke the Mug 打破杯子的鼠小弟 (Book 8)! This is not her smoothest reading compared to other Chinese reading progress videos.

However, I think it’s a good example of how she takes breaks to look at the pictures, and that I have to be quiet and patient during her reading.

Examples of the 可爱的鼠小弟 books

想吃苹果的鼠小弟 (Book 2)

Little Mouse Craves Apple 想吃苹果的鼠小弟 was my son’s favorite as a toddler! He was always asking for “apple 书” and loves seeing the different animals on each page reaching for the apples.

In this story, each animal that comes to the apple tree easily plucks an apple to eat. However, 鼠小弟 feels frustrated that he doesn’t have a long nose or the ability to climb or fly to get the apple. At last, the sea lion friend helps 鼠小弟 get his apple!

When my son was around 20 months and did not have the patience to listen to each sentence, we would simply chat about the illustrations and read the pictures.

For example, we’ll count the apples on each page and notice that each page has one less apple, or we’ll compare the size of the elephant with that of the mouse.

鼠小弟和鼠小妹 (Book 4)

The next images are from 鼠小弟和鼠小妹. My daughter was intrigued by this story because of the heart and the bubble over 鼠小弟 in the pictures.

We discussed that illustrations and text may show the character’s thoughts, such as in bubbles. In this case, 鼠小弟 is daydreaming about marrying 鼠小妹 and having a family.

打破杯子的鼠小弟 (Book 8)

The next few photos show Little Mouse Broke the Mug 打破杯子的鼠小弟. This is a great book about honesty, integrity, and overcoming mistakes.

鼠小弟 breaks a glass and brainstorms different excuses due to fear that his mother will yell at him. He considers blaming other animals, but ultimately comes clean to his mom.

Since the text and illustrations show other animals breaking the glass, this was another example for my children to learn that illustrations often show thoughts rather than real events.