The Pet Dragon by Christoph Niemann is an adorable tale of a little girl and her mythical animal companion, that also teaches basic concepts about the written Chinese language. Niemann was inspired by a trip to Asia, and a his first lesson about Chinese characters. The most memorable characters for him were the ones that most appeared to be symbolic icons for the ideas they represented. Through the illustrations in this book, Niemann demonstrates how the Chinese characters for words such as “tree” “dog” and “mountain” are all understandably indicative of what they mean. It’s also a really cute story, told like a folktale about a young woman who recieves a dragon, loses him, and then must find him again.