Xiao

In today's mail from Publishers Group Canada, the following little gem:
My Little Book of Chinese Words
by Catherine Louis, Shi Bo (Illustrator)
NorthSouth Books

This isn't really a dictionary but just a gorgeous little picture book for small children. The author notes in her introduction that she was fascinated to see how quickly her two young daughters could learn Chinese characters.

Each character gets its own spread - on the left-hand side we have the ancient character, the modern character in white-on-black calligraphy, the word in English, and the pronunciation. Then on the right is a beautiful linocut illustrating (in all possible senses) the word.

Not so much a way of teaching a language to young children, but a very pretty way of teaching them something about the concept of language and writing.