School Bookclubs and Book Reviews

If you don't know where to start with contemporary Chinese writing, why not get some inspiration from some of our excellent school book reviewers below -- click on each book cover to read what our reviewers thought of it.

Now write your own review! -- choose any Chinese literary work you have read in English translation, or try one of the specially selected short stories in our Schools Story Hub, translated by our partners in Paper Republic, a collective of the world's best translators from Chinese? Choose your favourite (or your least favourite if you prefer!) and write a review — what was it about, what did you like/dislike about it, what did you think about the plot/characterisation, did the translation read well to you, would you recommend it to others etc. etc. The Books Trust have provided a really useful overview of what to include in a book review here. You can follow this format if you like, or invent your own. Ask your teacher to send it to us as an email attachment.

If several of you from a single school are interested in reading translated literature, then talk to your teachers and get in touch with us to discuss setting up a bookclub in your school. We work with publishers to provide schools with some free copies of selected suitable titles which can be discussed in bookclubs in return for reviews. We encourage pupils, or teachers, to write reviews of the books they have read and we will publish them on our website. For some top tips about how to set up a bookclub in your school, from an experienced teacher, read our blog interview with Theresa Munford, an experienced teacher who has set one up in her school, with some truly fantastic results.