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The Ball of Fire: A Short Story in Simplified Chinese, Pinyin and English Kindle Edition

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A young boy finds himself alone in a ship in a terrible storm. All the other passengers and crew are dead. Suddenly he sees a bright yellow ball of fire on the mast...

This is a short story in Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English, excerpted from the short story collection "Learn to Read Chinese, Book 1" by Jeff Pepper and Xiao Hui Wang. It's based on stories told by Norman Hinsdale Pitman in "A Chinese Wonder Book" originally published in 1918.

Folk tales are immensely popular in China. Passed down orally over the centuries from grandparents and parents to children, they serve as an unwritten handbook for living in society. Nearly all Chinese folk tales are about simple people who find themselves in difficult situations. These people are often helped (and occasionally hindered) by talking animals, as well as by powerful gods, wizards and other supernatural beings who actively participate in events here on earth. Within every Chinese folk tale is an underlying moral message derived from one of the three major schools of spiritual thought – Daoism (also called Taoism), Confucianism, and Buddhism.

Pitman's versions of these stories are wonderfully written, but they were written over a century ago. He wrote them in English for English-speaking readers, and this unrestricted vocabulary is not quite what we're looking for in a graded reader such as this. So we have taken the liberty of retelling this story to use just 358 different Chinese words, most of which are in the standard 1200-word HSK4 vocabulary .

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09M95X6N7
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Imagin8 Press (November 18, 2021)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 18, 2021
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 878 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 52 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars 2 ratings

About the author

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Jeff Pepper
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I'm a writer and publisher living in Verona Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh. My company, Imagin8 Press, has published over 100 fiction and nonfiction books for people learning to read Chinese. Our best sellers are an innovative English translation of the Dao De Jing and a 31-volume retelling, in easy Chinese, of the classic novel Journey to the West.

I’m also a lifelong science fiction fan, and started writing sci-fi seriously in 2024. I am delighted that my short story, “Spaceship of Fools,” was accepted by Bewildering Stories. My first full-length sci-fi novel, “Ascent to the Sun,” was published in 2025.

Before embarking on my current career, I was in the software business. I founded and led three successful companies: ServiceWare, which began in my basement and went public on the NASDAQ; Touchtown, which was acquire by Uniguest; and Tunescribers, a music transcription company. I have a degree in computer science from Carnegie-Mellon University, where I taught an undergraduate course in computer programming.

When not sitting in front of a glowing screen, you can probably find me playing competitive pickleball.

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