Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

If you spend any time looking for books for your kids in Chinese, you’ll quickly run across the website or catalog for Cheng and Tsui, a Boston-based publisher and distributor of materials for learning Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

I just got their latest catalog and noticed that they’re marking certain books with a special note “Recently Adopted in OREGON.”

Congrats to the Portland’s Mandarin immersion program, the oldest public school Mandarin immersion program we know of, which is clearly seen as a trend setter. “It has name recognition, which is really key,” says Cheng and Tsui’s Megan Norlund. “When more established programs adopt some of our books, and tell other programs they’ve adopted them, it make a difference.”

The books, by the way, are the Flying with Chinese series with start in Kindergarten and are so far up to 5th grade.

Another note: Cheng and Tsui actually pronounces its name “Cheng and Soo-yee,” I found when I called.

And finally, Norlund says they’re working on books that will be interesting and readable for immersion students, but it’s still going to be a few years. We’ll keep you posted.