Book Highlight: Bamu & Kero series 包姆與凱羅系列

If you're in the Toronto Chinese Children's Book Swap FB group, you may have seen me post these a while back. But they're still so loved in our house by my son (now almost 2.5yo)!

At first glance, the illustrations are not "classically beautiful". The colours are muted and the character designs are... interesting lol

I would've totally just walked by them if they were displayed at a bookstore because -- let's be honest -- how pretty a book looks is 75% of how I decide whether to buy it or not 😂

But they are VERY, VERY well reviewed among Chinese parents in Taiwan and in the US, so I figured why not.

And they did not disappoint - my son loves them! ♥️ He's particularly drawn to the Kero character, who is definitely the more mischievous one of the duo lol

One nice thing about these books is that there is nothing to "teach". It is not at all preachy, which Chinese children's books can sometimes be.

There is no moral to learn, and no segue to important discussions or life lessons. It's just stories about fun adventures between two friends. Which can be refreshing 🙂

Secondly, the DETAILS in these books are amazing (there are a lot of sidebar stories with the tinier characters). The illustrator definitely put a lot of thought in it, that even as adults, you'll find something fun and interesting on subsequent reads.

Finally, if there's any book set that has ridiculously amazing VALUE, it's this set!

I distinctly remember being skeptical, and wondered why the publisher is offering these books at such an amazing price.

Apparently (and take this with a grain of salt cause I can’t verify 🤷🏻‍♀️), the rights to these books were initially sold to a different publisher. It unfortunately went under. So the rights were sold again cheaply in a fire sale to current publisher?

It's apparently way more expensive to get these same books in the original Japanese language. And there's actually a fifth book, but because prices are too unreasonably cheap, the author didn't sell the rights to translate it 😅

Find the set here: Bamu and Kero Series (Set of 4) • 包姆與凱羅系列(全4冊)

Here's example of the random details in the book below: This tiny mouse appears in the corner of the main thing going on in the frame, but I love it's almost its own little comic strip 🤣