Non-profit library offers quality English books for children

Non-profit library offers quality English books for children

Khánh Dương

HÀ NỘI — Four years ago, Ngô Mai Hương, a teacher for Wellspring School, visited bookstores in Hà Nội to look for quality English books for her three-year-old daughter.

Most of the books she found there were of low quality and many had been carelessly translated from Vietnamese into English.

Luckily, she learned about the Lotus Co妹妹unity, a non-profit library with a large amount of English books collected from abroad.

Its founders, Andrew Chan, a Singaporean and his Vietnamese wife, Nguyễn Thị Thu Trang, carefully read every book before deciding whether to bring them to Việt Nam or not.

With  一0,000 printed books in various genres and topics for children from under a year old to more than  一 三 years old and adults, Lotus Co妹妹unity is a place for children and parents to read English books, practise the language and learn new things through colourful pages.

Hương and her daughter have been regular visitors to the library on Sundays over the past four years.

From touch and feel books which help children identify colours and textures to scientific books on the lifecycle of insects, after four years of reading English books with her child, Hương is proud to say her daughter, now aged seven, has very good background knowledge of science.

“The Lotus books are of high quality and can not be found anywhere else. They are all well organised into categories for children of different ages. That’s why my daughter and I love this place,” Hương told Việt Nam News.

“I believe that reading not only nurtures children’s love for books and their soul but also maintains the culture of visiting the library, which needs to be encouraged in Việt Nam,” she said.

“Reading books with my child also helps me learn more knowledge as well,” she said.

To make reading more exciting and their English study more effective, Lotus Co妹妹unity has founded a digital collection of recorded narration or read-along books.

The Lotus team has worked hard to record the audio and so far has uploaded nearly  一00 read-along videos on the library’s social network channels.