Chinese stories retold in English

[Pengyou]

I am teaching a readers theater class to junior high students this semester.  I am looking for a book of English translations of famous Chinese stories - a web page or link would also do. Traditional or contemporary will do.  I have searched for this but I keep getting the reverse, famous international stories translated into Chinese.  Any help would be appreciated.

[akdn]

The World Stories website may have what you need (but, really aimed at younger readers).

 

"World Stories is a growing collection of stories from around the world. The collection includes retold traditional tales and new short stories in the languages most spoken by UK children."

 

The site provides English translations of stories from various languages, as well as the texts in the original language.

 

You need to register (free) to gain full access. But, you can see extracts of stories from China here. 

[Wippen (inactive)]

8 hours ago, Pengyou said:

I am looking for a book of English translations of famous Chinese stories - a web page or link would also do

There are often good stories behind some of the Chinese idioms (chengyu).  The morale of the story has given rise to a particular idiomatic expression. The best comparison I can give for an English equivalent idiom is "cry wolf" which comes from the story of Peter and the Wolf. The sentence "he is crying wolf" is enough to let us know the meaning without more being said. That is similar to the essence of a Chinese chengyu idiom. There is a story behind it which is the reason for its existence.

 

In China there are many such short stories. One that randomly sprung to mind is the story of the clam and the sandpiper that get locked into a battle, the end result being a third party benefits from them being at loggerheads.

 

If such stories are of interest to you, I am sure more users here are willing to post a few of the most famous ones that have been translated into English. I am sure the most famous are all translated.

 

Example of the sandpiper and clam.

 

http://english.sohu.com/20041217/n223533434.shtml

 

The recommendation above by akdn is also good.

 

PS I think I gave an oversimplified explanation of a chengyu. But saw you are based in China. You obviously know this already. Apologies if this is the case.