Words to Learn
牛niúan ox, a cow
丑chǒuthe second hour of the night
丑時丑时chǒu shíthe chǒu hour, deep night
山shānmountain
The Verse
Long past midnight, deep and still,
An old man rides up the mountain hill —
His green ox steady, his white beard long.
This is Lao Tzu, leaving China.
For grown-ups
Ask the children:
- What is the world like in the deep middle of the night? What can you hear? What can you see?
- What is an ox? Have you ever seen one? What do oxen do?
- Why might the Chinese have given this quiet hour to the patient ox?
Try this: Have the children walk slowly across the room, one heavy step at a time, the way a strong ox walks. Big, slow, steady. No hurry.
A note on Lao Tzu: Lao Tzu was a wise old man in ancient China who wrote a famous book called the Daodejing. The story says that when he grew very old, he rode his green ox westward, out through the mountains, and was never seen again.
Words to Learn
兔tùa rabbit
卯mǎothe fourth hour, dawn
卯時卯时mǎo shíthe mǎo hour, dawn
月yuèmoon
The Verse
The mǎo hour, the morning is new.
A rabbit hops out into the dew.
And up in the sky, the fading moon —
Look closely. There's a rabbit there too.
For grown-ups
Ask the children:
- What does the world look like at sunrise? What changes in the sky as the sun comes up?
- What do rabbits do in the morning? Where do they live?
- Have you ever looked at the moon and tried to find a face or a rabbit in it?
Try this: Have the children hop like rabbits — quick little hops, ears up, noses twitching. Then have them sit still and look up at the imaginary fading moon, searching for the rabbit who lives there.
A note on the moon rabbit: In old Chinese stories, a goddess named Chang'e flew up to the moon and now lives there. She is not alone — a jade rabbit lives with her and pounds the elixir of long life in a mortar. At the Mid-Autumn Festival, Chinese children look up at the full moon and try to see the rabbit's shape.
Words to Learn
龍龙lónga dragon
辰chénthe fifth hour, mid-morning
辰時辰时chén shíthe chén hour, mid-morning
雨yǔrain
The Verse
Mist on the river. Mist in the trees.
Out of the mist, a dragon flies.
He brings the rain to fields and farms,
Then disappears into the sky.
For grown-ups
Ask the children:
- What is mist? Have you ever walked through a foggy morning? What did it feel like?
- The Chinese dragon is not a scary dragon — he is a friend who brings the rain. Why might farmers have wanted a dragon to bring rain?
- Where does a dragon live? In the mountains? In the rivers? In the sky?
Try this: Have the children fly like dragons — long bodies winding through the air, arms spread wide, swooping low and rising high. Then have them be the rain falling — light fingers tapping on the floor.
A note on Chinese dragons: Unlike dragons in Western stories, the Chinese dragon is a kind and benevolent creature. He lives in rivers and clouds, brings rain to farmers' fields, and is the symbol of good fortune. Every summer, China celebrates a Dragon Boat Festival in his honor.
Words to Learn
馬马mǎa horse
午wǔthe seventh hour, noon
午時午时wǔ shíthe wǔ hour, the hour of noon
中午zhōng wǔnoon (the everyday word, still used today)
風风fēngwind
The Verse
The sun is high. The day is bright.
A horse runs fast, his mane the wind.
The painter Han Gan painted horses
So well, they might run off the silk.
For grown-ups
Ask the children:
- What is it like outside at noon? Where is the sun? Is it bright or dim, warm or cool?
- What does a horse do? How does a horse run? Have you seen one?
- Why might the Chinese have given the brightest, strongest hour of the day to the horse?
Try this: Have the children gallop like horses — strong legs, manes flying in the wind, running across an imaginary field at full speed under the noon sun.
A note on Han Gan: Han Gan was a painter in the Tang dynasty, more than a thousand years ago, who was famous for painting horses. His paintings were so lifelike that people in his time joked the horses might walk right off the silk and run away. A few of his horse paintings still survive today in museums.
Words to Learn
羊yánga goat or sheep
未wèithe eighth hour, early afternoon
未時未时wèi shíthe wèi hour, early afternoon
草cǎograss
The Verse
Past noon, the warm afternoon —
A goat is grazing in the grass.
She does not hurry. She does not worry.
The grass is sweet, the day is long.
For grown-ups
Ask the children:
- What is the world like in the warm early afternoon? What might you want to do at this hour?
- What does a goat eat? Where does a goat live?
- What does it feel like not to hurry, not to worry — to just be calm and quiet for a while?
Try this: Have the children become goats grazing — bending down slowly to nibble the imaginary grass, walking calmly, no rushing. Then have them lie in the warm sun for a moment of stillness.
A note on the goat in Chinese culture: The goat (yáng 羊) is one of the oldest domestic animals in China. Its character even appears inside the Chinese word for beautiful (美 měi) — a goat over a great. To the ancient Chinese, the goat was a symbol of mildness, sweetness, and quiet good fortune.
Words to Learn
猴hóua monkey
申shēnthe ninth hour, late afternoon
申時申时shēn shíthe shēn hour, late afternoon
樹树shùtree
The Verse
The shēn hour — and through the trees,
Listen! The monkeys are awake.
One of them once flew on a cloud,
The Monkey King, Sun Wukong.
For grown-ups
Ask the children:
- What is it like in the late afternoon? Are you tired, or do you have new energy?
- What do monkeys do? How do they move? What sounds do they make?
- Why might the Chinese have given the lively afternoon hour to the playful monkey?
Try this: Have the children leap and chatter like monkeys — swinging from imaginary branches, climbing high, calling to one another. Big movement, lots of noise, full afternoon energy.
A note on Sun Wukong: Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, is one of the most beloved characters in Chinese literature. He is the hero of a great novel called Journey to the West, in which he flies on a magic cloud, fights demons with a magic staff, and travels with a Buddhist monk to bring the Buddhist scriptures from India back to China. Children in China have loved Sun Wukong for hundreds of years.
Words to Learn
雞鸡jīa chicken, a rooster
酉yǒuthe tenth hour, dusk
酉時酉时yǒu shíthe yǒu hour, dusk
家jiāhome
The Verse
The sun goes down. The light grows low.
The rooster calls his hens to come.
"Home, home, home," he says, "the day is done."
And one by one, they go.
For grown-ups
Ask the children:
- What does the world look like at sunset? What colors are in the sky?
- What does a rooster sound like? Have you heard one?
- A rooster takes care of his hens — calling them home at the end of the day. Who calls you home at the end of the day?
Try this: Have the children take turns being the rooster, calling the others home. The "hens" come walking back, one by one, until the whole flock is together. A small flock-gathering game.
A note on the rooster in Chinese culture: The rooster has long been admired in China as the bird who tells the truth about the time — he always crows when the sun comes up, and he always calls his hens home at sunset. In old Chinese tradition, the rooster was said to embody five virtues, including courage and trustworthiness.
Words to Learn
豬猪zhūa pig
亥hàithe twelfth hour, late evening
亥時亥时hài shíthe hài hour, late evening
夢梦mèngdream
The Verse
The hài hour. The day is done.
The pig is sleeping, deep and warm.
The whole house dreams. The night grows still.
And soon — the rat will come again.
For grown-ups
Ask the children:
- What is the world like in the late evening, just before bedtime? What do you hear in your house at this hour?
- What does it feel like to be deep asleep, dreaming?
- The day has gone all the way around. What animal will come next, when the night gets deepest again?
Try this: Have the children settle into a sleeping pose — curled up, eyes closed, breathing slowly. After a moment of stillness, have them perk up like little rats, ready to start the cycle again.
A note on the pig in Chinese culture: The pig has been part of Chinese village life for thousands of years. The Chinese character for home or family (家 jiā) is made of a roof (宀) over a pig (豕) — the pig was such a part of every household that the very word for home contains it. The pig is a quiet symbol of plenty, warmth, and contentment.
How to use this book
This book is designed to grow with the children. On a first read-through, simply read the verses aloud and let the rhythm of the day carry the children through. The verses are short by design — together they take only a few minutes to read.
On a second reading, slow down. Use the For grown-ups prompts after each verse. Have the children describe the time of day from their own experience. What is it like at this hour? What is the world doing? What might you be doing? Then talk about the animal — what it does, what it looks like, what sounds it makes. Then ask the children to think about why the Chinese might have paired this animal with this hour. Does this make sense? Why? Four-year-olds are surprisingly good at this kind of reasoning when given the chance.
The Try this activity for each scene gives the children's bodies something to do. Movement, sound, gesture, role-play. Four-year-olds learn through their bodies as much as through their ears, and acting out the animals is one of the most reliable ways to make a verse stick. By the end of the book the children have been twelve different animals — they have scurried like rats, walked like oxen, hopped like rabbits, flown like dragons, slithered like snakes, galloped like horses, grazed like goats, leapt like monkeys, gathered like roosters, kept watch like dogs, and curled up to sleep like pigs.
Other ways to extend the book:
- Coloring pages. A line drawing of each animal in its hour, for the children to color while you re-read the verse.
- Drawing the day. Have the children draw a circle (the day) and divide it into twelve slices, with one animal in each slice. They can fill it in across many sittings.
- The clock connection. For older children, point out where each hour falls on a real clock. The rat is at midnight. The horse is at noon. The day goes around just like the hands of the clock.
- Family animals. Help the children find out which animal-year they were born under, and which animals their parents and grandparents belong to. This is one of the strongest connections to family history that Chinese culture offers.
- Singing. The verses are short and rhythmic. They sing easily to a simple repeated tune. A class can learn all twelve as a small song-cycle of the day.
The book rewards repetition. The more often the children hear it, the more the rhythm of the day will live in them.
A note for grown-ups
The twelve animals in this book come from one of the oldest classifying systems in Chinese civilization: the twelve earthly branches (地支, dì zhī), used together with the ten heavenly stems (天干, tiān gān) to count days, months, years, and hours for more than three thousand years. The system is attested on Shang dynasty oracle bones from around 1100 BCE. By the Han dynasty, each of the twelve branches had been matched with one of the twelve animals — the rat, the ox, the tiger, the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the goat, the monkey, the rooster, the dog, and the pig.
The traditional Chinese day was divided into twelve two-hour periods, each one called a shí chén (時辰) and governed by one of the twelve branches and its animal. The animal paired with each hour was chosen to match what that animal does at that time of day. The rat is paired with the deepest hours of the night, when rats are most active. The horse is paired with noon, when the sun is highest. The dog is paired with early evening, when the dog stands guard.
The popular folk story of the Great Race — in which the Jade Emperor calls a race across a river to decide the order of the animals — is a folk explanation that grew up around the system many centuries after the system itself was established. This book leaves the race aside and presents the animals as they were originally understood: as figures in an ancient way of measuring time, drawn from careful observation of the world.
A few of the verses in this book carry small classical references. The ox carries Lao Tzu, the legendary author of the Daodejing, who was said to have ridden a green ox westward through the mountain pass when he left China for the unknown west. The rabbit recalls the jade rabbit who lives on the moon with the goddess Chang'e. The snake recalls Nüwa, the snake-bodied goddess who, in ancient myth, made the first human beings out of yellow earth. The horse recalls Han Gan, a Tang-dynasty painter so skilled that people said his painted horses might walk off the silk. The monkey recalls Sun Wukong, the Monkey King of the great Ming-dynasty novel Journey to the West. These figures are introduced lightly, by name only — the kind of small first encounter that a child carries forward into the rest of their reading life.