China for Kids Through the Lives of its Thinkers, Heroes, and Emperors

The history of China is the longest continuous history of any nation in the world. If you want to understand how historical China has become the China of today - the answer is in plain sight, except... it spans 5000 years! The history of China is also as enthralling as an adventure novel. Villains and heroes of legendary stature... epic clashes of civilizations... invasions, rule of foreign dynasties, massive rebellions and liberation wars... and through all these twists and turns of its fate, China kept its culture and national identity, absorbed all foreign influences, and even swallowed the ancestral lands of its invaders.

Not only was China far ahead of Europe with its many brilliant Chinese inventions, such as paper, paper money, firearms, the printing press, silk, and porcelain, but some social policies from deep in its history were, also, very modern for their time. For instance, during the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) bookseller businesses were free of tax - to promote literacy and education. Wealthy families paid for free medical care for the poor across China. In families where parents were over 70, one of their sons was allowed to stop paying taxes so he had extra money to care for his elderly parents. To people over 80, whose kids couldn't provide for them, the government gave free meat and wine.

As with all the books in this series, "China for Kids" teaches history through stories. These stories are reports of the actual historical events with zero fictionalization. The only "filtering" I did was to select stories that are engaging or surprising, and to choose events that deal with issues that modern kids and teens can relate to. Plus, I filtered out any content that either portrays extreme cruelty or non-family-friendly phenomena.

In addition to its main narrative, "China for Kids," offers paragraph-long explanations of concepts and terms - such as Feng Shui, Chinese painting and calligraphy, Chinoiserie, kowtowing, sedan chairs, dragon robes, Chinese mandarins, mandarin squares, Imperial Examinations, the Terracotta army, the Forbidden City, and more... as well as vignettes on the history of silk, porcelain, tea, the Silk Road, the Great Wall of China, and others.

The historical figures whose stories are included in the book are Lao Tsu, Confucius, Sun Tsu, Qin Shi Huang, Zhang Qian, Wang Mang, Emperor Guangwu, Emperor Taizong, Empress Wu Zetian, Kublai Khan, the Hongwu Emperor and Empress Ma, Tang Yin, Lin Zexu, Empress Dowager Cixi, Sun Yat-sen, and the last emperor of China - Puyi. Plus there are vignette appearances of many other fascinating characters of Chinese history.