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A short, sweet, very simple read about a boy, his dog, and a new pair of shoes. <!--more-->

<img src="http://chinesereadingpractice.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120102-INLINE.jpg" alt="Simple and Easy Chinese Childrens Stories for Reading Exercise" title="Simple and Easy Chinese Childrens Stories for Reading Exercise" width="100" height="100" class="imgborder alignleft" />In this story, the name of the young boy is 浩浩 [pinyin]hao4 hao4[/pinyin], and you'll see those two characters a lot. You'll also see in several places that characters are sometimes doubled up. When writing is intended for young children, you'll often see characters repeated twice. For example, while 小狗 means 'dog', 狗狗 might be equivalent to "doggie" - it's essentially baby-talk. 

There is one difficult little clause in this text, which is: 扯着衣角. Let's examine it piece-by-piece. 扯 [pinyin]che3[/pinyin] means to pull at something. 着 [pinyin]zhe5[/pinyin], in this instance, means "ing", or "while doing". So we've now got "Pulling at...". Then there's 衣 [pinyin]yi1[/pinyin], meaning "clothing", so we now have "Pulling at clothing...". And finally 角 [pinyin]jiao3[/pinyin], corner. So the sentence reads "Pulling at clothing corner", or in better English, "Pulling at the corner of his clothes". 

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<h4>小狗穿鞋</h4>
妈妈给三岁的浩浩买了一双新鞋，浩浩<strong>穿</strong>上后左看看，右瞧瞧。家里的小狗跑了过来，<strong>舔</strong>了舔浩浩的鞋。

浩浩<strong>仰</strong>起头来，天真地问:“妈妈，狗狗冷吗？他怎么不穿鞋？”妈妈<strong>顺口</strong>说了一句:“你去问它吧。”

<strong>于是</strong>浩浩<strong>低下头</strong>，对着小狗的<strong>耳朵</strong>说:“小狗狗，你冷吗？我给你穿鞋好吗？”<strong>突然</strong>他大叫起来:“妈妈，狗狗说它冷，它向我点头呢！”

不知什么时候，浩浩把自己的鞋子<strong>脱</strong>了下来，<strong>套</strong>在小狗的两只前脚上。

“妈妈，还<strong>差</strong>两只脚呢！”

“差什么两只脚？”

“狗狗还差两只脚没有鞋呢......”

话还没说完，小狗汪汪汪地叫着，逃跑了。浩浩低着头、<strong>红着脸</strong>、扯着衣角，不好意思地向妈妈走去，嘴里念叨着:“新鞋让小狗穿走了，小狗现在和我一样，都<strong>光</strong>着两只脚啦！” 
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Mama bought three-year-old Hao Hao a new pair of shoes, Hao Hao put them on and turned this way and that looking at them [lit: turned left and looked, turned right and looked]. The household dog ran over and licked Hao Hao's shoes. 

Hao Hao looked up, and naively said: "Mama, is doggie cold? Why doesn't it wear shoes?" Mama smoothly said: "Go and ask it." 

So Hao Hao looked down, and in the dog's ear said: "Little doggie, are you cold? Should I give you some shoes to wear?" Suddenly he loudly shouted, "Mama, doggie said he's cold, it nodded its head at me!"

Not long after, Hao Hao took off his own shoes, and put them on the dog's two front feet.

"Mama, there are still two feet missing!" 

"Which two feet are missing?" 

"Doggie is still missing shoes for two of his feet..."

Before he'd finished speaking, the dog barked woof woof woof, and ran away. Hao Hao hung his head, blushing, and he pulled at the corner of his clothes, too embarrassed to go to his mother, and he called out: "The dog ran off wearing the new shoes, the dog and I are now the same, we both have two bare feet! 
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