The saying “a book is like a garden (carried in your pocket)” adorns pillows, mugs, bookmarks, t-shirts, and doormats in English, and the graphic above this paragraph was made by a user of German. But the proverb originated in Chinese.

And ISB’s Chinese parent community has given a gift of books to our students.

Proceeds from the Chinese stand at last year’s International Family Fair (IFF) have gone to fund two orders of books in Mandarin, for the ES Library (Hub) and the MS/HS Library. All of the books are now on shelves. These books were ordered by librarians in collaboration with Mandarin faculty to facilitate independent reading.

The title of this post features a version of the book/garden proverb in Traditional Chinese. Here is a version in Simplified Chinese:

书本如一座随行的花园 

We would like to say to parents 謝謝 and 谢谢!