About Auspicious Times

 

Auspicious Times is a Hong Kong-based English-language publisher of quality illustrated children’s books for primary school-aged kids. Our books are funny, fabulous, and designed to get kids learning as they laugh!

We believe that the key to learning is having fun. It’s amazing how much information children will happily absorb once their funny bones have been tickled. So all our stories are funny, with witty rhyming verse and wacky and wonderful illustrations.

We also believe that reading books is how children learn new words – and that a rich and varied vocabulary is the key to great communication skills. So we NEVER dumb down the language in our books and ALWAYS make sure that we slip in some interesting new words under the radar.

We also believe that picture books are for older kids too, provided the stories are interesting, the language is challenging and the pictures are engaging. Our books are loved by kids as young as four and as old as twelve; we even have loyal adult customers who collect all our books!

Finally, we believe that everyone has a duty to make their business as environmentally-friendly as possible – so all our books are printed on paper made from well-managed sustainable forest sources.

There are two growing series:

The Chinese Calendar Tales

These best-selling illustrated stories, based on the animals of the Chinese Zodiac, were written to fill a gap in the English language children’s book market. We believe that it is vitally important for kids living in Asia and learning English, and kids anywhere who want to learn about Asia, to be able to read story books which relate to Chinese or Asian culture and traditions. But it’s also important that they have fun while they’re reading! Each story shows the characteristics of a zodiac animal in a funny story set against a Chinese background, with some fascinating Chinese history or cultural traditions included in every tale.

The Dirty Stories

This growing series has been a hit in Hong Kong and is fast spreading to international shores! Meet the Neats and the Grots, arch-rivals and fellow residents of the famous Twinkle Downs! It’s mayhem and madness galore as they do battle in these hilarious illustrated stories, where the Grots get grubby and the Neats get even … in the end! They’re a magical mix of manic humour and old-fashioned fun with a strong environmental message thrown in!

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• Keeping Up to Date – If you’d like to be kept up to date with our events, new books and other news, please subscribe to our blog. You can also follow our author Sarah Brennan on Twitter @Sarah_Rhymes, on her blog at www.sarahbrennanblog.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SarahBrennanAuthor. You can follow our artist Harry Harrison on www.facebook.com/HarryHarrisonIllustrationCompanyLimited/

• Distribution – You can buy our books in English language bookstores in Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Australia. For trade terms, including schools, please contact us for details of our distributors there.

• Submissions – We do not accept unsolicited submissions.