Xiao Ming, Boy Sherlock: Mandarin Companion Graded Readers Breakthrough Level

Breakthrough level

by John Pasden, Jared Turner, Shishuang Chen (Editor)

Even at a young age, Xiao Ming (boy Sherlock Holmes) has a reputation among his peers for his keen powers of observation. His budding skills are put to the test when he is tasked with finding a thief at school. However mysteries always seem to find him when strange fires start out of seemingly nowhere and a classmate begins anonymously receiving flowers from a secret admirer. With the help of his older brother, Xiao Ming employs his skills of wit and deduction to unveil the truth hidden behind every mystery.

Mandarin Companion is a series of easy-to-read novels in Chinese that are fun to read and proven to accelerate language learning. Every book in the Mandarin Companion series is carefully written to use characters, words, and grammar that a learner is likely to know.

The Breakthrough Level is written using only 150 unique Chinese characters and is intended for Chinese learners who have obtained a low elementary or novice level of Chinese. Most learners will be able to approach this book after one year of traditional formal study, depending on the learner and program. This level is designed to help learners begin to read full-length texts in Chinese and combines simplicity of characters with an easy-to-understand storyline that helps beginners grow their vocabulary and language comprehension abilities.

Genres: China, Fiction

Kindle Edition

Published November 26, 2019

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book I've ever read in Chinese! I think the stories are really good considering that the authors could only use 150 unique characters in order to make this book appropriate for us beginners. I learned a lot from this book and gained confidence in my language learning. I'm looking forward to learning more with Mandarin Companion!

[John Osborne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was similar to Zhou Haisheng in that it consists of three stories. I found this much more interesting than Zhou Haisheng and would recommend it. That said it felt too easy, but I am now excited to start reading my first Level 1 Mandarin Companion today.

[Vicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

My 4th graded reader! Continuing to read these aloud with my tutor. We both noticed my speed beginning to pick up with this one. Almost all the words are familiar now, but the repetition in the format of a narrative is so helpful. It's very encouraging to be able to read a story at my level.

This book is structured into vignettes, little mysteries solved by Xiăo Míng. It was "ok" compared to, say, 花马 (Huā Mă) in the series, that had a little more "surprise." But I heard that there's continuity with 小明 into the later Sherlock Holmes books (level 1 + 2). Looking forward to it 😊

[小肉桂卷机 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost halfway through the old HSK3 course in a span of 4 months, I was pleasantly surprised to realise I managed to get through this short story! Admittedly with small breaks inbetween, I was able to grasp the plot although a few words were unfamiliar to me (the struggle when you recognise 500+ individual characters but not every new meaning their combinations can form).

Onwards I would like to reread this story by the end of my course to track my progress, in addiotion to read other similar graded books.

[Ethan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple story. Good for learning Mandarin as a beginner.

[Tiff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Mandarin Companions, especially Sherlock stories. The mystery keeps you wanting to find out more. Perfect for struggling Chinese language readers.

[Paige · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first Chinese book 🥲 very cute stories!

[Amelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really excited to read more from this publisher

[dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

clunky sentences, one dimensional characters, and a confused plot 😮‍💨

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Popsugar Reading Challenge 2024: A book that starts with an X (read in 2025)

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Mandarin Companion graded readers are a really great set of books for Chinese language learners. Xiao Ming, Boy Sherlock is such a cute story and the writers stayed faithful to their commitment to limited vocabulary and easy-to-understand grammar. Even so, they still produced interesting characters and an engaging story that made me sometimes forget I was reading in another language. I was definitely one of those intermediate Chinese learners that never read anything besides textbook sample dialogues. Xiao Ming is the first Chinese book I have ever read and now I'm trying out a book from the Mandarin Companion Level 1 series. I look forward to reading more of these books. I really appreciate the word list provided with each book and also the grammar breakdown for each chapter (which is also available online) at the end of the book. In the back of the book there's also discussion questions for each chapter. I don't really use those but I foresee myself revisiting the discussion questions for future writing or speaking practice. Highly recommend.

[Bill Squires · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is broken into three stories. I found the first two stories to be fairly uninteresting but the third was more clever.