Bücher von Jeff Pepper

The travelers arrive at a tall mountain. An old man warns them that it's infested with thousands of man-eating demons but Sun Wukong ignores the warning. Soon they meet the three demon leaders: a blue-haired lion, an old yellow-tusked elephant, and a huge terrifying bird called Great Peng. The demons trap Sun Wukong in a magic jar but he escapes. Later the three disciples try but fail to defeat the three demons. Finally, with nowhere else to turn, Sun Wukong goes to Spirit Mountain to beg help from the Buddha himself.This is the 25th book in the best-selling The Journey to the West series of stories for students learning to read Chinese. It is based on the epic 16th century novel of the same name by Wu Chen'en. That novel was inspired by an actual journey by the Buddhist monk Tangseng, who traveled from Chang'an westward to India in 629 A.D. and returned seventeen years later with priceless knowledge and spiritual texts. Over the course of the book the four travelers face the 81 tribulations that Tangseng had to endure to attain Buddhahood.The first 25 books in the Journey to the West series have used a total of about 2000 different Chinese words, but only 890 words are used in this book. We introduce 17 new words in the book, each one defined on the page where it is first used. The book uses Simplified Chinese characters and includes pinyin, an English translation, and a full glossary. A free audiobook is available on YouTube's Imagin8 Press channel and on www.imagin8press.com.

The Monkey King Sun Wukong leads the Tang monk and his two fellow disciples westward until their path is blocked by a river eight hundred miles wide. On the riverbank is a village where the people live in fear of the Great Demon King, who demands two human sacrifices each year. Sun Wukong and the pig-man Zhu Bajie come up with a clever plan to trick the Demon King and save the people of the village, but they soon discover that the Demon King has clever plans of his own.This is the 16th book in the best-selling The Journey to the West series of stories for students learning to read Chinese. It is based on the epic 16th century novel of the same name by Wu Chen'en. That novel was inspired by an actual journey by the Buddhist monk Tangseng, who traveled from Chang'an westward to India in 629 A.D. and returned seventeen years later with priceless knowledge and spiritual texts. Over the course of the book Tangseng and his companions face the 81 tribulations that Tangseng had to endure to attain Buddhahood.The story is written, as much as possible, using the 1200 word vocabulary of HSK4, plus several hundred words introduced in previous books in the series. It is presented in Simplified Chinese characters and pinyin, and includes an English version and glossary. A free audiobook is available on YouTube's Imagin8 Press channel and also on www.imagin8press.com.

A wealthy girl runs away with her cousin, a poor stonecarver. A scholar finds true love inside a book. Two lovers defy death to be together. And a young man finds love with two ghosts.Believe it or not, it's possible for you to read and understand the four wonderful love stories in this book even if you start off not knowing a single word of Chinese! We won't lie to you and say it will be easy, but with time and patience you can certainly do it.Each page of Chinese faces a page of pinyin (phonetic spelling), so if you don't recognize a word, you can check the pinyin to see how it's pronounced. You can then look up the word's meaning in the glossary in the back of the book. A full English translation is also included.You can also listen to a complete audiobook of all the stories, available free on YouTube and downloadable from our website.These stories are written by the best-selling writing team of Jeff Pepper and Xiao Hui Wang, authors of the Journey to the West series of graded readers, translations of Chinese classics including the Dao De Jing, the Art of War, and the San Zi Jing, and lots of other great books. To learn more, visit www.imagin8press.com.

The story of Cinderella is possibly the world's most popular folk tale. The earliest known version is from Greece around two thousand years ago, and over the next thousand years, it traveled to France, Italy and Germany, and eventually to the Walt Disney studio in America.But as the Cinderella story traveled from Greece to Western Europe, it was also carried eastward to Asia along the Silk Road and other ancient trade routes. The story of Ye Xian in this book is the oldest known Asian version, first appearing in a book of folk tales by Duan Chengshi in 860 AD. That story was told in just 750 Chinese words.The Ye Xian story matches the modern Cinderella story more closely than later European versions. But unlike the Disney movie, it does not simply end with the heroine marrying and living happily ever after. The story is more complex and more interesting, showing Zhuang, Hindu, Buddhist, and Chinese influences.In this book, the best-selling writing team of Pepper and Wang retell this wonderful story using just 450 different Chinese words, most of which are in the standard 1200-word HSK4 vocabulary. This limited vocabulary makes the story easily accessible to beginning and intermediate students of Chinese. A glossary of all words is in the back of the book, along with an English translation. A free audiobook version is available on the Imagin8 Press channel of YouTube, and also at www.imagin8press.com.

A young boy shares a little house in Beijing with 23 cats. His friend comes to visit, but the two of them can't sit down, can't study, and can't even eat dinner together because of all the cats. What to do? The answer, which involves a very large dog, will surprise and delight you.This wonderful little tale is for beginning Chinese students of all ages. Its tiny vocabulary of just 101 words is taken from the HSK1 list of words used to teach beginning students of Chinese. Each page of Simplified Chinese is faced by an opposite page of pinyin (phonetic spelling), so if a reader gets stuck on an unfamiliar word they can check it against the pinyin. A complete glossary and English translation is in the back of the book, and a free audiobook is available on YouTube and can be downloaded from the Imagin8 Press website.Twenty Three Cats is written by Jeff Pepper, best-selling author of the multi-volume Journey to the West series for beginning and intermediate Chinese readers, and many other books including innovative translations of the Chinese classics Dao De Jing, San Zi Jing, and The Art of War.

Two friends find a golden nugget on the ground. A young girl meets a fox spirit. A dog saves a life, a tiger takes a life. A girl runs away from her fishing boat. And a boy saves the spirit of his grandfather.Believe it or not, it's possible for you to read and understand the stories in this book even if you start off not knowing a single word of Chinese! We won't lie to you and say it will be easy, but with time and patience you can certainly do it.Each page of Chinese faces a page of pinyin (phonetic spelling), so if you don't recognize a word, you can check the pinyin to see how it's pronounced. You can then look up the word's meaning in the glossary in the back of the book. A full English translation is also included.You can also listen to a complete audiobook of all of these stories, available free on YouTube and downloadable from our website.These stories are written by the best-selling writing team of Jeff Pepper and Xiao Hui Wang, authors of the Journey to the West series of graded readers, translations of Chinese classics including the Dao De Jing, the Art of War and the San Zi Jing, and lots of other great books. To learn more, visit www.imagin8press.com.

Sang is a young scholar living alone in a small village in 18th century China. One night a strange and beautiful woman arrives at his house, and he soon falls deeply in love with her. But later, a second even more beautiful woman arrives, and things become extremely complicated. This is a story about fox spirits and ghosts, love and lust, and the unpredictable nature of the human and the not-quite-human heart.This book is a retelling of a Chinese short story called "e;Lotus Fragrance,"e; from the book Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio written by Pu Songling and published in 1740.It's written using the 1200-word HSK4 vocabulary, making it accessible to advanced beginner or intermediate students of Chinese. A glossary of all words is included, along with an English translation. A free audiobook is available on YouTube on the Imagin8 Press channel.The authors are the best-selling writing team of Jeff Pepper and Xiao Hui Wang, co-authors of the Journey to the West series of graded readers, and translations of Chinese classics including the Dao De Jing, the San Zi Jing , and the Art of War.

The young monk Xuanzang sets out on his westward journey. His journey is difficult and filled with dangers. He runs into trouble immediately when he is captured and nearly killed by the Monster King and his ogres. He escapes with the help of a mysterious old man, only to be attacked on the road later by tigers, snakes and more monsters. Eventually he meets the Monkey King, Sun Wukong. Together they face bandits and wild animals, and Sun Wukong must make a difficult decision.This is the 6th book in the best-selling Journey to the West series of stories for students learning to read Chinese. It is based on the events in Chapters 12 through 14 of the epic 16th century novel of the same name by Wu Chen'en. That novel was inspired by an actual journey by the Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who traveled from Chang'an westward to India in 629 A.D. and returned seventeen years later with priceless knowledge and spiritual texts. Over the course of the book Tangseng and his companions face the 81 tribulations that Tangseng had to endure to attain Buddhahood.The first 6 books in the Journey to the West series are written using an HSK vocabulary level of about 600 different Chinese words, but 669 are used in this book. Fifty two new words are introduced and are defined on the pages where they are first used. The book uses Traditional Chinese characters and includes pinyin, an English translation, and a full glossary. A free audiobook is available on YouTube's Imagin8 Press channel and on www.imagin8press.com.

This book contains the full text of the 25th, 26th and 27th stories in our Journey to the West series for people learning to read Chinese. The three stories told here are unchanged from the three original books except for minor editing and reformatting.In Great Peng and His Brothers, the travelers arrive at a tall mountain and must confront three powerful demons: a blue-haired lion, an old yellow-tusked elephant, and a huge terrifying bird. In The Thousand Children, the king of Boytown has locked a thousand little boys in cages in front of their homes. Sun Wukong must defeat a demon masquerading as a Daoist master, release the king from a spell, and save the children. And in The Monk and the Mouse, Tangseng saves a lovely young woman in the forest, only to learn that she is a mouse demon intent on marrying him. His disciples just manage to save him, with unexpected help from one of Sun Wukong's old adversaries.These three stories are written in Simplified Chinese and use a total of 1344 different Chinese words. Each page of Chinese has a facing page of pinyin. The book includes a full English translation and glossary. Free audio versions of the three stories are available for free on YouTube's Imagin8 Press channel and on the Imagin8 Press website.

This book is a retelling, in easy-to-read Chinese, of the legendary story of how a little stone monkey was born, became king of his troop of monkeys, left his home to pursue enlightenment, received the name Sun Wukong (literally, "ape seeking the void") from his teacher, and returned home to defend his subjects from a ravenous monster.Sun Wukong, the Handsome Monkey King, is one of the most famous characters in Chinese literature and culture. His legendary bravery, his foolish mistakes, his sharp-tongued commentary and his yearning for immortality and spiritual knowledge have inspired hundreds of books, television shows, graphic novels, video games and films.This is the first book in the best-selling Journey to the West series of stories for students learning to read Chinese. It is based on the events in Chapters 1 and 2 of the epic 16th century novel of the same name by Wu Chen'en.This story is told using only 507 Chinese words, most of which are in the standard HSK3 vocabulary. All new words are defined on the page where they are first used. The book uses Traditional Chinese characters and includes pinyin, an English translation, and a full glossary. A free audiobook is available on YouTube's Imagin8 Press channel and on www.imagin8press.com.

Tangseng and his disciples have been traveling for two or three years. They arrive at a secluded mountain monastery which turns out to be the home of a powerful master named Zhenyuan and an ancient and magical ginseng tree. As usual, the travelers'' search for a nice hot meal and a place to sleep quickly turns into a disaster. Although Zhenyuan has gone away for a few days, he has left his two youngest disciples in charge. They welcome the travelers, but soon there are misunderstandings, arguments, battles in the sky, and before long the travelers are facing a powerful and extremely angry adversary, as well as mysterious magic fruits and a large frying pan full of hot oil.This is the 10th book in the best-selling The Journey to the West series of stories for students learning to read Chinese. It is based on the epic 16th century novel of the same name by Wu Chen''en. That novel was inspired by an actual journey by the Buddhist monk Tangseng, who traveled from Chang''an westward to India in 629 A.D. and returned seventeen years later with priceless knowledge and spiritual texts. Over the course of the book Tangseng and his companions face the 81 tribulations that Tangseng had to endure to attain Buddhahood.The story is written, as much as possible, using the 1200-word vocabulary of HSK4. It is presented in Simplified Chinese characters and pinyin, and includes an English version and glossary. A free audiobook is available on YouTube''s Imagin8 Press channel and also on www.imagin8press.com.

This story starts innocently enough, with two good friends chatting as they walk home after eating and drinking at a local inn. One of the men, a fisherman, tells his friend about a fortune-teller who advises him on where to find fish. This seemingly harmless conversation between two minor characters triggers a series of events that eventually cost the life of a supposedly immortal being, and cause the great Tang Emperor himself to be dragged down to the underworld, where he must convince the Kings of the Underworld that he is innocent of wrongdoing. They release him but he is still trapped in hell, and must escape with the help of a deceased courtier.This is the 5th book in the best-selling Journey to the West series of stories for students learning to read Chinese. It is based on the events in Chapters 10 and 11 of the epic 16th century novel of the same name by Wu Chen'en. That novel was inspired by an actual journey by the Buddhist monk Tangseng (formerly called Xuanzang), who traveled from Chang'an westward to India in 629 A.D. and returned seventeen years later with priceless knowledge and spiritual texts. Over the course of the book Tangseng and his companions face the 81 tribulations that Tangseng had to endure to attain Buddhahood.The first 5 books in the Journey to the West series have used a total of about 600 different Chinese words, but only 590 are used in this book. All new words are defined on the page where they are first used. The book uses Traditional Chinese characters and includes pinyin, an English translation, and a full glossary. A free audiobook is available on YouTube's Imagin8 Press channel and on www.imagin8press.com.

The story of Mulan, the young girl who joins the army to save her family and her country, is at least 1500 years old. Over the centuries, it has inspired dozens of poems, plays, novels, songs, and more recently, graphic novels, TV shows and films. The details of the story vary, but the core is always the same: a young girl living with her family in a small Chinese village learns that the army requires each family to contribute one man to fight invaders from the North. To save her elderly father she disguises herself as a young man and enlists in the army; she excels at fighting, strategy and leadership and rises through the ranks; the war ends successfully; she is recognized as a hero and is offered rewards by the Emperor; she declines the rewards and humbly chooses to return to her family and take up the traditional life of a village woman.This wonderful little book consists of just 30 six-line verses, and lets beginning students enjoy a great story while also learning to read Simplified Chinese. It is written in a 240-word vocabulary using fewer than 300 different characters. Proper nouns are underlined, and new words that are not in the HSK3 standard vocabulary are defined on the page where they first appear. Each page of Chinese also contains a pinyin (romanized spelling) version and an English translation. The pinyin is also useful for looking up word definitions in the glossary. A complete audiobook version is available free on YouTube and can also be downloaded from the Imagin8 Press website.

"The Emperor In Hell" is the fifth book in the "Journey to the West" series of stories by Jeff Pepper and Xiao Hui Wang. Other titles include "Rise of the Monkey King", "Trouble in Heaven", "The Immortal Peaches" and "The Young Monk".The story starts innocently enough, with two good friends chatting as they walk home after eating and drinking at a local inn. One of the men, a fisherman, tells his friend about a fortuneteller who advises him on where to find fish. This seemingly harmless conversation between two minor characters triggers a series of events that eventually cost the life of a supposedly immortal being, and cause the great Tang Emperor himself to be dragged down to the underworld. He is released by the Ten Kings of the Underworld, but is trapped and must escape with the help of a deceased courtier named Cui Jue.This book is based on chapters 9, 10 and 11 of Journey To The West, an epic novel written in the 16th Century by Wu Chen'en. Each book in our Journey to the West series covers a short section of the original 2,000-page novel.Journey To The West is loosely based on an actual journey by the Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who traveled from the Chinese city of Chang'an westward to India in 629 A.D. and returned 17 years later with priceless knowledge and texts of Buddhism. Over the course of the book the band of travelers face the 81 tribulations that Xuanzang had to endure to attain Buddhahood.This book, the fifth in the series, tells the final series of stories that lead us to the actual journey to the west, which starts in Book 6. It is by far the darkest and most frightening of all the stories we've told so far, with a series of horrifying visions of after-death punishment of evildoers that are reminiscent of those in Dante's Inferno.The story is written, as much as possible, using the 600 word vocabulary of HSK 3. It is presented in simplified Chinese characters and pinyin, and includes an English version and complete glossary. A free Chinese language audiobook is also available on YouTube, on the Imagin8 Press channel.

The young monk Xuanzang sets out on his westward journey. His journey is difficult and filled with dangers. He runs into trouble immediately when he is captured and nearly killed by the Monster King and his ogres. He escapes with the help of a mysterious old man, only to be attacked on the road later by tigers, snakes and more monsters. Eventually he meets the Monkey King, Sun Wukong. Together they face bandits and wild animals, and Sun Wukong must make a difficult decision.This is the 6th book in the best-selling Journey to the West series of stories for students learning to read Chinese. It is based on the events in Chapters 12 through 14 of the epic 16th century novel of the same name by Wu Chen'en. That novel was inspired by an actual journey by the Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who traveled from Chang'an westward to India in 629 A.D. and returned seventeen years later with priceless knowledge and spiritual texts. Over the course of the book Tangseng and his companions face the 81 tribulations that Tangseng had to endure to attain Buddhahood.The first 6 books in the Journey to the West series are written using an HSK vocabulary level of about 600 different Chinese words, but 669 are used in this book. Fifty two new words are introduced and are defined on the pages where they are first used. The book uses Simplified Chinese characters and includes pinyin, an English translation, and a full glossary. A free audiobook is available on YouTube's Imagin8 Press channel and on www.imagin8press.com.

This is the 20th book in the best-selling The Journey to the West series of stories for students learning to read Chinese.

This book contains the full text of the first three stories in our best-selling Journey to the West series for people learning to read Chinese. The three stories told here - The Rise of the Monkey King, Trouble in Heaven, and The Immortal Peaches - are unchanged from our original versions except for minor editing and reformatting.These three stories all focus on the adventures of Sun Wukong, the Handsome Monkey King, one of the most famous characters in Chinese literature and culture. His legendary bravery, his foolish mistakes, his sharp-tongued commentary and his yearning for immortality and spiritual knowledge have inspired hundreds of books, television shows, graphic novels, video games and films.The full story of Sun Wukong''s adventures is told in Journey to the West, an epic 2,000 page novel written in the 16th Century by Wu Cheng''en. Journey to the West is probably the most famous and best-loved novel in China and is considered one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature.The story is written, as much as possible, using the 600-word vocabulary of HSK3. It is presented in Simplified Chinese characters and pinyin, and includes an English version and complete glossary.  A free audiobook is available on YouTube''s Imagin8 Press channel, and on our website, www.imagin8press.com.

The monk Tangseng and his disciple, the short-tempered Monkey King Sun Wukong, begin their multi-year journey to retrieve Buddhist scriptures from Thunderclap Mountain in India. They first encounter a mysterious river-dwelling dragon, then run into serious trouble while staying in the temple of a 270 year old abbot. Their troubles deepen when they meet the abbot''s friend, a terrifying black bear monster. This is the 7th book in the best-selling The Journey to the West series of stories for students learning to read Chinese. It is based on the epic 16th century novel of the same name by Wu Chen''en. That novel was inspired by an actual journey by the Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who traveled from Chang''an westward to India in 629 A.D. and returned seventeen years later with priceless knowledge and spiritual texts. Over the course of the book Tangseng and his companions face the 81 tribulations that Tangseng had to endure to attain Buddhahood.The story is written, as much as possible, using the 1200-word vocabulary of HSK4. It is presented in Simplified Chinese characters and pinyin, and includes an English version and glossary. A free audiobook is available on YouTube''s Imagin8 Press channel and also on www.imagin8press.com.

This book contains the full text of the 7th, 8th and 9th stories in our Journey to the West series for people learning to read Chinese. The three stories told here are unchanged from our original versions except for minor editing and reformatting.The Monster of Black Wind Mountain tells the story of the first few months of the journey itself. The monk Tangseng is accompanied by his disciple, the short-tempered Monkey King Sun Wukong. They run into serious trouble while staying in the temple of a 270 year old abbot, and their troubles deepen when they meet the abbot's friend, a terrifying black bear monster. In The Hungry Pig we meet the pig-man Zhu Bajie, who becomes Tangseng's second disciple. In a previous life, Zhu got drunk at a festival and attempted to seduce the Goddess of the Moon. The Jade Emperor banished him to earth, but as he plunged from heaven to earth he ended up in the womb of a sow and was reborn as a man-eating pig monster. And in The Three Beautiful Daughters, the band of pilgrims arrive at a beautiful home seeking a simple vegetarian meal and a place to stay for the night. Instead, they encounter a lovely and wealthy widow and her three even more lovely daughters. This meeting is, of course, much more than it appears to be, and it turns into a test of commitment and virtue for all of the pilgrims.The story is written, as much as possible, using the 1200-word vocabulary of HSK4. It is presented in Simplified Chinese characters and pinyin, and includes an English version and complete glossary. A free audiobook is available on YouTube's Imagin8 Press channel, and on our website, www.imagin8press.com.