SBWire | Dec 3, 2007 | Mandy and Pandy Nominated for ForeWord Magazine Book of The Year Award and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards

PRLog | Nov 30, 2007 | Mandy and Pandy Say “Ni Hao Ma?” Gets National Recognition

ClassBrain | Sept 27, 2007 | Mandy and Pandy Say, “Nî Hâo Ma?” – Review

Young Adult Books Central | Learn to speak Chinese with your child – Review

“We take the co-development with PorchLight as a very important step for our international collaboration strategy,” The GM of CCTV Animation Wang Ying said, “Both PorchLight and CCTV Animation have successful credits of creativities and experiences in producing animation and programming in their respective cultural territories. The collaboration is a meaningful start for enhancing more international projects for both companies.”

“We are very pleased to be announcing our partnership with CCTV Animation,” said Bruce Johnson, President & CEO of PorchLight.  “CCTV has the largest children’s audience of any broadcaster worldwide and has shown exceptional quality in their animated programming.  They bring enormous expertise and experience to this historic collaboration.  With international interest in China roused during the Summer Olympics, the timing is perfect for this type of show.”

Snap! Let’s Go! follows the adventures of a Chinese girl named Mandy (Wang), a western boy named Matt (Johnson), their life-sized Panda bear mentor, and a mischievous, surprise-loving dragon named Snap as they explore new locations and learn about each others’ culture.  Intertwined with the adventures, the series will teach Chinese viewers English phrases and all other worldwide viewers the same phrase in Mandarin Chinese.  In each episode, the kids, Pandy and Snap will travel to a preschool friendly location like a fire station, library, or zoo, where they will join in the fun of each new place they visit.  If appropriate, they will visit the same type of place in both China and the western world, out of which will arise enriching experiences of a new culture.

“Snap! Let’s Go! shows preschoolers that although we may come from different places across the world, we have so much in common,” said Shea Fontana, Vice President of Children’s Programming at PorchLight.  “But this program celebrates the differences, like the food we eat, the games we play, and the words we use.  But no matter how we say ‘This is fun!’ the feeling is the same across the globe.”

Snap! Let’s Go! is based on the Mandy & Pandy book series created by Chris Lin and illustrated by Ingrid Villarta.  The Mandy & Pandy book series introduces preschool and elementary age students to Chinese words and phrases with pictures books that include an accompanying CD which reads the story in both English and Chinese.

About CCTV Animation

CCTV Animation Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of CCTV (China Central Television). CCTV is Chinese state TV broadcaster and the largest network, which reaches over 1 billion viewers in China and 100 million overseas families.  CCTV Animation has more than 700 hours of high-quality animation series (permanent IP rights) with a steady increasing of over 5000 minutes annually, which are created and produced by first-class creative talent of the country and state-of-the-art equipment. It has the most award-winning animation series in China, such as Journey to the West, The Legend of Nezha, The Adventures of Little Carp, Young Detective Di Renjie, New Fables and so on so forth, which are blockbusters with extensive merchandising market as well. CCTV Animation’s core business includes original animation production, distribution, merchandising, licensing and cooperation in new media. Its main broadcasting platform is CCTV Children’s Channel, which covers over 96% of mainland China, and is in the top eight of satellite television channel share. For more information, visit  http://ysdh.cctv.com.

About PorchLight Entertainment

PorchLight Entertainment is a multi-faceted company focused on the production and distribution of high-quality family entertainment and licensing and merchandising representation for children’s and family brands and trademarks.  Since its formation in 1995 by veteran entertainment executive Bruce D. Johnson, PorchLight has produced more than 30 live-action and animated movies and major animated series including the Emmy Award-winning series, Tutenstein, for Discovery Kids and Jetix Europe, Jay Jay The Jet Plane for PBS, Four Eyes for France 3, Nickelodeon Asia and Nickelodeon Australia; and Adventures from The Book of Virtues for PBS, and a series of direct-to-videos for Leapfrog, the leading electronic toy company. The company co-produced Animalia for the BBC, PBS, Nickelodeon and Network Ten in Australia and CBC in Canada; Secret Saturdays for Cartoon Network; A Tad of Christmas Cheer for Leapfrog, and a line-up of live-action and animated movies for the international television and DVD market.  For more information, visit www.porchlight.com.

“Mandy and Pandy quickly became a part of my family’s household as well as many of my friends, family and neighbor’s,” said Melissa Golden, Sales Director of Mandy and Pandy. “I believe in these books and their purpose so strongly that I wanted to be a part of Mandy and Pandy so that others could experience the joy and education in their homes as Mandy and Pandy has brought into mine.”

Author and creator Chris Lin says he sees the importance of learning Chinese as a good foundation for the future so that now more than ever we all have a reason to learn even a little bit of Chinese. Books 3 and 4 are due to be released in July to coincide with the Beijing Olympics. These are Mandy and Pandy Visit China and Mandy and Pandy Play Sports.

“Mandy and Pandy look forward to helping teach Chinese to children and those who are young in their hearts,” said Lin. “Our year is full of appearances across the country and we are excited to be in Chicago as we continue on our journey.”

Mandy and Pandy has already been recognized as outstanding product by iParenting Media in the category of educational books for children as well as being nominated for several upcoming book awards. The iParenting Media award is considered one of the most prestigious awards for products for families.

Chris Lin is originally from Troy, Michigan where he played football on the State Finalist “Giant Killers” in 1985, and graduated as class president in 1987 from Troy High School. Lin went on to earn a BA in Economics and an MBA in marketing from University of Michigan and spent several years studying Chinese. When he brought his adopted daughter, Mandy, from China to Chinese class over a year ago, he realized that there was a need for fun books that made learning Chinese easy.

“Well,” I just did,” said the man, putting his hands on his hips.  The kids ran.

As the man and I continued to our cars, I had one of those moments of clarity:  One of the problems with the world today is that kids don’t respect older people in the village. So, as soon as they’re out of sight or earshot of their parents–and sometimes that doesn’t work–they can run as wild as they want.

Thank goodness that never happened in our neighborhood when the kids were growing up.   The kids around here knew that when a parent–anyone’s parent–told them to do something, they’d better do it.  We were a village.

And with the exception of one kid who’s had a few brushes with the law, the kids turned out pretty well.  In fact, they turned out really well.   And as they turned into adults, the village has hung together.

One of the village kids is a young man named Chris Lin.  Chris was a star athlete at Troy High way back when the football team had a grade point average over a 3.0.  In his junior year the team played in the state finals.  He went on to the University of Michigan and got both a B.A. and M.B.A.   One of his first jobs took him to China, where he had a chance to polish the Chinese he studied at U of M–as well as learn that his parents had been right about insisting he go to Chinese school on Saturdays!

Two years ago, Chris and his wife, Kristi, adopted a daughter from China.  Her name is Mandy.   While he and Kristi knew that Mandy would change their lives, I’m sure they never realized how.

Chris called me a couple of months ago to tell me about a new Mandy-inspired project.  He has formed a company called, Mandy and Pandy, and written a series of books designed to delight kids and teach them Chinese.  The first one is titled, Mandy and Pandy Say, “Ni Hao Ma?”

Now, I know what “Ni Hao Ma” means because it’s the only Chinese phrase I was able to master on two trips there.  It means, “How are you?”   It’s pronounced:  knee-how-ma.  And that’s the way I remembered it:  “How’s your ma’s knee?”   Okay, but it works.

Now, Chris sees the market for his books as Americans like him who have adopted children from China and want the children to learn the language of their country, but he also sees the books as being great for Chinese-born parents who want their children to learn Chinese, as well as any parent or grandparent who wants to help a child learn another language like Chinese.

And let me tell you, as someone who taught a foreign language, you can’t start them too young.

There are six books in the present series.  All are also available as audio books.  The illustrations are wonderful, and the books are perfect for even the smallest child.  They’re printed on cardboard and are very sturdy.

The books are available in Ann Arbor at Nicola’s Book (734-997-0707) and at Learning Express (734-662-0600).   They’ll be on the shelves at Borders soon.  If you’d like to learn more or order books on line, you can go to www.mandyandpandy.com.

Pandy, by the way, is a darling stuffed Panda. You can get him on line, too.

This member of our little village is very proud of Chris.  “He done good.” And I know everyone’s going to love the books and tapes.

(Kathryn Hutson is a Troy resident and freelance writer.  Her column appears in The Daily Tribune every Monday.)

Inspired by his 2-year-old daughter Mandy, Lin created the book for children to learn some basic words and phrases of the Chinese language. Lin started the book project in September last year.

Mandy and Pandy ask “Ni hao ma” – which translates in English to “how are you?”- as they visit family members and friends, and take part in various activities.

“The book is not only unique to Mandy, but to all different children,” said Lin, who was raised in Troy and now resides in Ann Arbor. “I like the kids to come away with some key phrases. It’s a great way to learn because it’s fun and they’re excited about learning something new.”

Short sentences are on each page in English, while the Chinese translation sits just below for readers.

Lin hosted a slide show of the book, which is due for publication in April.As Lin taught the students new words in Chinese, Brad Hall, vice president of Infinite Web Design and Lin’s marketing director, dressed as a life size panda bear to entertain the kids.

“If they’re excited about learning, then they’ll have a passion for learning new things.” said Lin about his readers.

Lin also played a nursery rhyme CD and led the students in a sing-along to popular songs that the children were familiar with – but the words were in Chinese.

Nancy Sallen, director of curriculum at Early Impressions and a kindergarten teacher, said Lin’s book is a start to helping the students embrace unfamiliar surroundings.

“This makes them more aware of people in the world and understanding differences in the world,” said Sallen. “Understanding different cultures is paramount in our world.”

Sallen added that the students have created their own books, complete with diagrams, and have incorporated math, science and geography in some projects.

“It’s a logical approach to a variety of subjects,” said Sullen.

Lin’s book will be available in bookstores in April. To reserve a copy of the book, visit www.mandyandpandy.com.

You can reach Jennifer Brock at jbrock@candgnews.com or (586) 498-1058.