Library Large Deal: 51 Books

This is a comprehensive collection of easy-to-read books for people learning Chinese language and culture, great for larger libraries and schools. It includes:

  • All 20 books in the Library Medium Deal
  • All books in the 31-volume Journey to the West series
  • All books in the 6-volume Last King of Shang series

Each book starts with an English-language introduction, followed by the main body in Chinese characters, pinyin (phonetic spelling) and English, and a glossary of all words used.

In addition, each book is available as a free Chinese language audiobook on the Imagin8 Press YouTube channel, so your readers can listen while they read.

To order or to learn about our other collections, visit the order form.





Library Large Deal


Journey to the West, Book #7: The Monster of Black Wind Mountain
572 word vocabulary, 183 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
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.
Journey to the West, Book #8: The Hungry Pig
699 word vocabulary, 187 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
The pig-man Zhu Bajie becomes Tangseng’s second disciple. In his previous life, Zhu was the Marshal of the Heavenly Reeds, responsible for the Jade Emperor’s entire navy and 80,000 sailors. But unable to control his appetites, he 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. He marries a farmer’s daughter, fights with Sun Wukong, and ends up joining Tangseng and Sun Wukong in their journey to the Western Heaven.
Journey to the West, Book #9: The Three Beautiful Daughters
517 word vocabulary, 119 pages.
In Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
In this book we tell the story of the monk Xuanzang’s birth and early years. Our story begins with the Buddha’s decision to bring his wisdom to China. Then we meet Xuanzang’s father and mother and learn about their terrible ordeals around the time of his birth. Finally we jump ahead to when Xuanzang turns eighteen, learns of his true parentage, and avenges his parents.
Journey to the West, Book #10: The Magic Ginseng Tree
629 word vocabulary, 169 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
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.
Journey to the West, Book #11: The Monster’s Secret
680 word vocabulary 169 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
The Buddhist monk Tangseng and his ragtag band of disciples come upon a strange pagoda in a mountain forest. Inside they discover the fearsome Yellow Robed Monster, living a quiet life with his wife and their two children. Unfortunately the monster has a bad habit of ambushing and eating travelers. The ancient and powerful monkey king Sun Wukong, the monk Tangseng and his other disciples find themselves drawn into a story of timeless love and complex lies, as they battle for survival against the monster and his allies.
Journey to the West, Book #12: The Five Treasures
684 word vocabulary, 185 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
The travelers arrive at Level Top Mountain and encounters their most powerful adversaries yet: Great King Golden Horn and his younger brother Great King Silver Horn. These two monsters, assisted by their elderly mother and hundreds of well-armed demons, attempt to capture and liquefy Sun Wukong, and eat the Tang monk and his other disciples. Led by Sun Wukong, the travelers desperately battle their foes through a combination of trickery, deception and magic, and barely survive the encounter.
Journey to the West, Book #13: The Ghost King
691 word vocabulary, 185 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
The monk Tangseng arrives with his disciples at a mountain monastery, and he is visited in a dream by someone claiming to be the ghost of a murdered king. The ghost claims that the king sitting on the throne is really an evil demon. Is he telling the truth or is he actually a demon in disguise? Tangseng’s chief disciple, the monkey king Sun Wukong, offers to go to the king’s palace and sort things out with his iron rod. But things do not go as planned.
Journey to the West, Book #14: The Cave of Fire
776 word vocabulary, 181 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
While traveling the Silk Road, Tangseng and his three disciples encounter a young boy hanging upside down from a tree. They rescue him only to discover that he is really Red Boy, a powerful and malevolent demon and, it turns out, Sun Wukong’s nephew. Ignoring this family relationship, the demon kidnaps Tangseng and plans to eat him. The three disciples battle the demon but soon discover that he can produce deadly fire and smoke which nearly kills Sun Wukong. The two remaining disciples struggle to save Sun Wukong and Tangseng, enlisting the aid of several supernatural beings including Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy. At the end, they learn Red Boy’s true nature.
Journey to the West, Book #15: The Daoist Immortals
827 word vocabulary, 181 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
Tangseng and his three disciples have traveled to the wild country west of China. They arrive at a strange city where Daoism is revered and Buddhism is forbidden. The few remaining Buddhist monks are enslaved, but every night they receive a dream message that the Great Sage Equal to Heaven will come to save them. This of course is the Monkey King Sun Wukong, the eldest disciple. Sun Wukong gleefully causes trouble in the city, and finds himself in a series of deadly competitions with three Daoist Immortals.
Journey to the West, Book #16: The Great Demon King
861 word vocabulary 163 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
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.
Journey to the West, Book #17: The Thieves
801 word vocabulary, 163 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
Sun Wukong steals rice from an elderly villager’s kitchen, then Zhu Bajie takes three silk vests from a seemingly abandoned tower. These small crimes trigger a violent confrontation with a monster who uses a strange and powerful weapon to disarm and defeat the disciples. Helpless and out of options, Sun Wukong must journey to Thunderclap Mountain and beg the Buddha himself for help.
Journey to the West, Book #18: The Country of Women
821 word vocabulary 177 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
The four travelers run into temptations in a nation of women and girls. First, Tangseng and his disciple Zhu become pregnant after drinking from the Mother and Child River. Later, the nation’s queen meets Tangseng and pressures him to marry her. He barely escapes, only to be kidnapped by a powerful female demon who takes him to her cave and tries to seduce him. The travelers must use all their tricks and strength to escape.
Journey to the West, Book #19: The Angry Monkey
749 word vocabulary, 177 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
The monk Tangseng has harsh words for his eldest disciple, the monkey king Sun Wukong. His pride hurt, Sun Wukong complains to the Bodhisattva Guanyin and asks to be released from his service to the monk. She refuses his request. This leads to a case of mistaken identity and an earthshaking battle that begins in the sky over the monkey’s home on Flower Fruit Mountain, moves through the palaces of heaven and the depths of the underworld, and ends in front of the Buddha himself.
Journey to the West, Book #20: The Burning Mountain
833 word vocabulary, 173 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
As Tangseng and his disciples travel west, they find their path blocked by a huge blazing mountain eight hundred miles wide. Tangseng refuses to go around it, so his senior disciple, the monkey king Sun Wukong, must discover why the mountain is on fire and how they can cross it. He soon learns that he himself ignited it five centuries earlier. But finding out how to extinguish the blaze is a far more difficult and dangerous task.
Journey to the West, Book #21: The Rain of Blood
517 word vocabulary, 119 pages.
897 word vocabulary, 181 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
An evil rain of blood covers a city and defiles a beautiful Buddhist monastery. Three years later Tangseng and his disciples arrive at the city and discover two fish-demons drinking wine and gambling in the top floor of the monastery’s pagoda. This leads to an epic underwater confrontation with their boss, a powerful dragon king.
Journey to the West, Book #22: The False Buddha
821 word vocabulary, 161 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
Tangseng sees a sign, “Small Thunderclap Monastery,” and foolishly thinks they have reached their goal. Sun Wukong sees through the illusion, but the false Buddha in the monastery traps him between two gold cymbals and plans to kill and eat his companions. Escaping that, the travelers find their path blocked by a giant snake and a huge pile of slimy and foul-smelling rotting fruit.
Journey to the West, Book #23: The Monkey Doctor
916 word vocabulary, 189 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
As the travelers continue their westward journey, they meet the king of Scarlet Purple Kingdom who is gravely ill, sick with grief over the loss of one of his wives who was abducted by a nearby demon king. Sun Wukong pretends to be a doctor and attempts to cure the king with a treatment not found in any medical textbook. Then he tries to rescue the imprisoned queen, leading to an earth-shaking confrontation with the demon king.
Journey to the West, Book #24: The Demons of Spiderweb Mountain
797 word vocabulary, 139 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
The Buddhist monk Tangseng goes alone to beg some food at the home of some beautiful and seemingly gentle young women. He soon finds out that they are far from gentle. Trapped in their web, he waits to be cooked and eaten while his three disciples attempt to rescue him by confronting the spider demons, a horde of biting insects, and a mysterious Daoist alchemist.
Journey to the West, Book #25: Great Peng and His Brothers
891 word vocabulary, 185 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
The travelers arrive at a tall mountain. An old man warns them that it’s infested with thousands of man-eating demons. 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 three disciples fail to defeat the three demons. Finally, Sun Wukong goes to Spirit Mountain to beg help from the Buddha himself.
Journey to the West, Book #26: The Thousand Children
839 word vocabulary, 141 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
Tangseng and his disciples arrive at “Boytown” where a thousand little boys have been locked in cages in front of their homes. Sun Wukong arranges to get them safely out of the city. Then he and the others unravel a plot devised by two demons who, disguised as a Daoist master and his lovely daughter, have beguiled the king. They must defeat the demon, release the king from his spell, and save the children.
Journey to the West, Book #27: The Monk and the Mouse
904 word vocabulary, 183 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
In a dark forest Tangseng finds a beautiful young woman tied to a tree and half-buried in the ground. The monk frees her, not realizing she is a deadly mouse demon. Later they arrive at a nearby monastery where she devours some monks and tries to force Tangseng to marry her. Sun Wukong learns the truth about her, lodges a complaint with the great Jade Emperor in heaven, and battles the mouse demon to save his master.
Journey to the West, Book #28: The Dharma Destroying Kingdom
912 word vocabulary, 173 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
Ignoring a warning from the Bodhisattva Guanyin, Tangseng and his disciples enter a city whose king has vowed to kill 10,000 Buddhist monks and has already finished off 9,996. The travelers must avoid being killed and show the king the error of his ways. Later, the disciples fight a great battle with demons who use the “Dividing the Petals of the Plum Flower” trick to confuse the disciples and kidnap Tangseng.
Journey to the West, Book #29: The Nine Headed Lion
919 word vocabulary, 193 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
The travelers discover a kingdom where it hasn’t rained for three years because the prefect has angered the King of Heaven. Sun Wukong brings rain and, of course, trouble. Later they meet a prince whose three sons want to learn how to use the disciples’ magic weapons. One night the magic weapons are stolen by a nearby lion demon and his grandfather, a nine-headed lion with vast powers.
Journey to the West, Book #30: The Lazy Monk
1065 word vocabulary, 229 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
Tangseng and his disciples arrive at a city just in time for the annual Lantern Festival, when three Buddhas come down from the sky and gather up large quantities of special lamp oil. Unfortunately these are not true Buddhas but monsters. They grab Tangseng and spirit him away to their cave. Later, the travelers visit a monastery where a strange girl is being held in a locked cell for her own protection. She claims to be the daughter of the King of India, but if so, who is the girl living in the king’s palace?
Journey to the West, Book #31: The Last Trial
1112 word vocabulary, 267 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
The travelers near the end of their epic journey, but their ordeals are not over. First, they are mistaken for murderers and thieves and must talk their way out of jail. When they finally arrive at the home of the Buddha, Tangseng must undergo one final trial. And it turns out that bringing the scriptures back is much more difficult than the pilgrims expected.
The Last King of Shang, Book 1
1200 word vocabulary, 353 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
Based on chapters 1-17. The foolish Shang king has gravely insulted a goddess. In revenge, she sends a thousand-year-old fox demon to extinguish the soul of the beautiful young Daji, inhabit her body, and seduce the king. Daji gains control of the king and his kingdom, leading the Shang Dynasty towards chaos and disaster.
The Last King of Shang, Book 2
1300 word vocabulary, 425 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
Based on chapters 18-34. The Shang kingdom descends into chaos as Daji, the beautiful thousand year old fox spirit, bewitches the king. Opposing him, the brilliant strategist Jiang Ziya navigates political intrigue and divine machinations to protect the kingdom.
The Last King of Shang, Book 3
1300 word vocabulary, 429 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
Based on chapters 35-50. In the waning days of the Shang dynasty in ancient China, an epic battle begins between forces loyal to the corrupt Shang king and the rebels of West Qi.
The Last King of Shang, Book 4
1200 word vocabulary, 455 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
Based on chapters 51-67. The corrupt king of Shang continues his siege of West Qi City. His forces camp outside the city gates and send powerful generals and terrifying sorcerers into battle. Then the two sons of the king arrive, tricked by a devious magician into fighting on their evil father’s side. Save 20% off regular price.
The Last King of Shang, Book 5
1200 word vocabulary, 417 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
Based on chapters 68-84. Jiang Ziya unites the Zhou rebels and leads them in a series of epic battles as they struggle to overthrow the corrupt Shang dynasty. Facing formidable foes, powerful magic and deadly traps, they find themselves allied with legendary immortals like Laozi, the founder of Daoism.
The Last King of Shang, Book 6
1300 word vocabulary, 435 pages.
Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English.
Based on chapters 85-100. The fox demon Daji leads the King of Shang deeper into madness and depravity. Meanwhile, the Zhou army, led by Jiang Ziya, grows ever stronger as the nation’s nobles join their cause. The Shang king still has powerful allies in heaven and earth, and both sides clash in fierce battles.