Book Review: Little Pear and His Friends by Eleanor Frances Lattimore

We just finished reading the second Little Pear book by Eleanor Frances Lattimore entitled Little Pear and His Friends.  These sweet books are about a young boy from a small Chinese village at the turn of the century. 

We read the first book about Little Pear before I travelled to China to adopt Kara, and, believe it or not, it helped me on my journey!  As we walked in a beautiful park in Hefei, we saw children eating what looked like candied apples on skewers, and immediately I remembered the Little Pear book.  This character’s favorite sweet were these candied fruits called Tang-hulurs.  I thought what I saw the Chinese children eating had to be these Tang-hulurs, but I couldn’t remember what they were called.  So, I contacted John on Internet Messenger to find the Little Pear book to look up what they were called.  Then I asked my guide if these treats were Tang-Hulurs, and she was quite impressed that I was right! 

I found this picture that shows the treat that I saw the Chinese children eating. I don’t know if all of these skewers are “Tang-Hulurs,” but I am pretty sure the ones with the red fruit are!

Anyway, this book is the sequel, and, yes, Little Pear still enjoys Tang-Hulurs!  In Little Pear and His Friends, a new baby joins Little Pear’s family.  The sweetest part in the whole book is where Little Pear uses his own money to buy his new baby brother a hat.  The rest of the book tells of Little Pear’s innocent but mischievious adventures.  He is very much like any other six-year-old boy, and I think that is one of the things that makes this book so enjoyable.

All of my kids enjoyed this book.  Even Kara followed along with the story and was so excited about Little Pear’s baby brother that she decided she wanted a baby too!  (We told her that she’ll just have to wait until she grows up to get her own baby!)  I even found Luke reading this book today, so I would say it was definitely a hit!

This book is a nice, innocent story.  It’s great that books like this are still available for my kids (even though they seem to be rather rare!)