I first found out about 
E-Readbook from the blog Big Boy and Xiao Chien. E-Readbook is a system that features a touch-reading pen that reads English or Chinese words for you when you point at the words in a special book. Fantastic, right?
I found the system on Amazon.com, and I bought the Beginner Package. It came with the pen, an adapter, a USB cable, & 8 books. When I received it, I was all confused because I couldn't read the instructions--they were all in Chinese. Luckily, with the help of my Chinese-literate friend, I learned how to download the sound files from the E-Readbook website, and I learned how to use the pen. Now, it works great, and I'm so happy!
Basically, you turn on the pen by pressing the button, then you sync the pen with the book by touching the pen to the logo on the front cover of the book. Then, you can start using the book.
This system seems to be designed for Chinese-speaking students to learn English, rather than for English-speaking students to learn Chinese. The pen often gives instructions in full sentences in rapid Chinese, and it's hard to understand it unless you are fluent in Mandarin.
However, the system can still be useful for those of us with limited Mandarin skills in that you can touch the pen to a word or phrase, and the pen will speak the English or the Chinese word or phrase that you're pointing to. The key is in choosing the right books.
In all, I'm happy that I got the E-Readbook system. However, it would've been extremely difficult if I didn't have a friend who was able to read and understand Mandarin in order to help me learn how to use it. I later discovered that there are some instructions in English that you can download from the E-Readbook website.
These are the books that I received with the Beginner Package:
New Concept English/Chinese Beginner Series
The orange book called "PQR" contains a few greetings, family members, animals, fruit, drinks, movements, parts of the face, colors, & clothing with English & Chinese words, as well as small sentences & poems. There are also some short songs in English. No pinyin is provided.
Disney's Scene Series
Disney's Home goes over family members, household items, garden tools, & food with some well-known Disney characters. There are English & Chinese words, but no pinyin. There's also a "Can you find?" game.
World Classic Fairy Tales Collection
Pinocchio is a storybook with Chinese characters and pinyin, but no English. The pen reads the whole page in rapid Chinese with accompanying music. Not a good choice if you're not fluent in Mandarin.
Learning Joyfully Series
The pink "A" book teaches the words for animals, food, vehicles, play structures, and household objects in English and Chinese (no pinyin). There are blank spaces for you to practice writing these words in English.
The orange "zi" book teaches parts of the face, animals, household objects, vehicles, and things in nature with Chinese characters and pinyin. There is no English. There are blank spaces for you to practice writing in Chinese.
The blue "pin" book teaches sounds. There are Chinese characters and pinyin. No English is provided. There are blank spaces to practice writing alphabet sounds in English.
The green book with an abacus on it has you practice writing numbers and do simple addition. There are only numbers and Chinese characters. No pinyin or English is provided.
Happy Coloring Series
The orange book with a compass on it has you color in pictures and guess what the picture will be. The pen speaks sentences in rapid Chinese. There are only Chinese sentences. No pinyin or English is provided.
If you have tried the E-Readbook system, please let us know what you thought of it and which books you enjoyed.
tobuy
Myinspirasian.com
We had our session with our Chinese tutor tonight and showed her the eReadbook pen and some books (Little Red Riding Hood, the English Chinese Dictionary, and 600 words books) and she said that the speaking was very good, the accent is good as is the choice of words/grammar. She is from Beijing. I am glad to have a native Chinese speaker's positive opinion.
Hi!
Glad you took the plunge to try the pen! It is true that it speaks rapidly in mandarin, but I haven't found that to be a huge problem re the instructions as at this point we are just pointing to listen, not doing the included games.
I didn't have the startup problem that you did, in that I bought the pen through http://bigreach.ca, and I requested that they upload the files for me onto the pen before sending it with the books. My pen was ready to go right out of the box, so we just had to turn it on, touch and listen. I carefully checked out the books on their website (there are video samples as well as page examples for each book) to choose which books would be best for our level (my son is a prereader fluent in English who understands a bit of mandarin, I am just past beginner in Chinese and can read some characters and pinyin).
We chose the 600 Words books (set of 3) which is for learning characters and has pinyin and English for every character, as well as the English Dictionary, which has pinyin, and also English translations for everything the pen says, both the sentences and the images (the images speak). You are right, the Fairy Tales are a real challenge. Though I am finding that at my level I can understand a lot of it by listening over and over, and starting with stories I know well, ie Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs, instead of the Happy Prince and Pinocchio. It is great for hearing common ways of speaking, as every wee animal and character drawn on the page "talks"! "Da hui lang lai le!" (the Big Grey Wolf is coming!) "Xiao Hong Mao, ni mama zai jiao ni ne!" (Little Red Riding Hood, your mama is calling you!)
Anyone interested in a bit more customer support can look at my blog for info on bigreach.ca and also use my Pen ID # to get a $10 off credit for their next purchase (after buying the pen). Congrats on your purchase! I'll try to get a proper review done in the near future!
Oh those dragon dancers are so cute!
These are the cutest. I need to take a class on working with marzipan so I can figure out how to make all of this cuteness. :-)
my favorite is the dragon decor. perhaps I'm partial because I was born in the year of the dragon.