The COVID-19 epidemic has plunged the world into a difficult time. For children, how can we help them stay positive about the future and be relaxed when encountering bad luck? Parent-child reading can convey positive energy through picture book stories and enhance the parent-child relationship. It can be said to be an approach that serves multiple purposes. Harvard bilingual education expert and English school CEO Wu Minlan often shares the following story with the children in the kindergarten, and now you can share it with your children.

Accompany every parent and child to become a better version of themselves.

Author: Wu Minlan

Graduated from the Department of Foreign Languages ??and Literature at National Taiwan University and a master's degree in bilingual education from Harvard University. She is the mother of two children and has lived in Northern Europe, Sweden, South Korea, the United States, Thailand, and New Zealand. country for many years. He is currently the CEO of an educational institution and a promoter of cross-cultural education, parent-child reading and English picture books. Parent-child world columnist. He is the author of "Picture Book 123, Use the Five Senses to Play with Your Baby's English Favorability", "Easily Cultivate Your Child's English Favorability", "Bilingualism", and "Reading Comics in English" (co-authored with Raima).

James & Kimberly Dean, a cat-loving couple, gave up their stable jobs to create children's books together in the kitchen of their home. After decades of drawing cats, James finally co-created "Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes" with musician Eric Litwin *** in 2008, which has made him famous ever since.

Pete, the happy-go-lucky cat in the story, can face it with ease no matter what bad luck he encounters, giving people a very positive and sunny impression.

When Pete went out for a walk wearing his favorite white shoes and sang "I love my white shoes..." while walking, he stepped on a bunch of strawberries and dyed the white shoes red.

Pete did not cry like a normal child, but calmly said: "Everything is cool!" Then changed the lyrics to "I love my red shoes..." and moved on. No matter whether Pete stepped on different things on the way or his white cloth shoes changed several colors, Pete never cried, he still sang happily and continued to move forward.

I often share this story with the children in the kindergarten, and loudly say Pete's mantra with the children: "Everything is cool!" "Groovy!" "Awesome!" I hope the children will encounter setbacks. When it comes, be able to respond easily and don't care too much or be too persistent.

When telling stories, every time a child sees Pete encountering something bad and hears adults uttering exclamations such as "Oh no!" "Goodness, no!", they always feel nervous and even say loudly: "Pete is terrible!" But when I see Pete's "let it be" attitude when things happen, I will be infected by Pete's optimistic and cheerful personality and smile because "Everything is gonna be alright."

Over the past few years, Pete has become one of the most popular children's book protagonists in the children's book industry.

James & Kimberly continue to create Pete's stories. Because of the bright colors, Pete's character positioning is also very clear, which is very attractive to young children. In addition to picture books, sticker story books, children's song picture books, and primers for emergent readers, there is also a "Groovy Guide of Life" for adults, which shares inspirational quotes and corresponds to Pete's philosophy of life.

Music plays an important part in Pete's life. In many stories, Pete often plays and sings his Rock and Roll with his good friends holding various instruments.

Several of the Pete series of stories co-written by James and Eric Litwin are very popular among children. Because Eric's music has a strong rhythm and simple, easy-to-understand and highly repetitive text, children can easily retell it when listening to the story. , often after the story is told, the children can already catch it and are deeply impressed!

I like Pete's philosophy of life and attitude. In the story of "Pete the Cat and the New Guy", when Pete was practicing band practice with his friends, he discovered a mysterious new friend in the city. The friend wore green shoes and a red hat, and cheerfully said to Pete: "Sounds like my kind of cat!" He wandered around in front of his new friend's house, and finally met his new friend Gus, who turned out to be just a cat. platypus!

The cheerful Pete found that the two of them were very different, but he said: "You're not like me, and I'm not like you, but I think being different is really very cool." Pete Actively assist Gus and hope that he can happily integrate into the circle of friends.

Gus encountered many setbacks during the process, but Pete continued to work hard and finally discovered Gus's secret talent and successfully integrated Gus into everyone's band. When sharing this story, I read it aloud with my children and enjoyed the fun and rhythm of the rhyming words at the end of Pete's words. We also played instruments together and enjoyed the fun of the band along with Rock'n Roll.

The most important thing is that through Pete’s cool and interesting stories, children know that when getting along with friends, they must learn to respect each other’s differences and understand that everyone has different abilities. Like Gus or Pete, but you can definitely find something that you can all do together! To paraphrase Pete, "Don't be sad. Don't be blue. There is something that everyone can do!"

A must-read list for the Pete the Cat series

" Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes"

"Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons"

"Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes"

"Pete the Cat and the New Guy"

"Pete the Cat's Groovy Guide to Life"

Pete the Cat official website

You can watch the story for free on the website Animated version, listen to the author telling stories, sing songs together, or download songs and worksheets.

***Parent-child games to play

1. Making a Guitar

Pete likes to play the guitar the most! Do you have cardboard boxes at home? Dig a hole in the surface, put rubber bands on top and bottom, add a handle, and you have a homemade little guitar!

2. I am a Little Jazz Drummer

Pack up the large and small milk powder and cereal cans at home, or directly turn over the large and small iron pots and cooking pots at home. Come over, set up a set of jazz drums and arrange them in front of the dolls, and then play a song with a clear rhythm. Then let the children hold wooden ladles or rhythm sticks in both hands, join Pete's band like Gus, and play happily beat.

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