6 Picture Books About How Buildings Are Built – in English & Chinese

Our toddler has an obsession with cars, particularly construction vehicles. So books about how buildings are built became a logical extension of the theme when it comes to reading. Here are 6 books he enjoyed time and time again. At age 1+/2 we were more looking at and talking about the pictures when younger. He is still enjoying them at 3+ and likely will continue to do so for quite a while yet. There’s 4 for English readers and 4 for Chinese readers. English and Chinese book names are bolded in the bulleted list below.

• Super Structures by Chris Baker
• Up! Up! Up! Skyscraper 《摩天大楼， 起！起！起！》 by Anastasia Suen
• How is the MRT System built? by LTA Singapore
• Construction 《 哐当哐当，去盖楼 》 by Sally Sutton
• 《 快来！一起盖房子 》(Let’s build a house together ) by Takeshita, Fumiko
• 《 电梯来了 》(Here comes the lift) by Kowase, Moriyasu

The Final Thoughts section at the end of this post reviews the books based on Montessori concepts when selecting books for young children.

1. How super structures are built

Super Structures by Chris Baker

Super Structures is a Level 4 Read it yourself with Ladybird book. 3.5 year old Little P has not even started learning his ABCs yet so please don’t misunderstand and think he can read it by himself already. Haha.

That said, Little P is greatly interested in the world and often pretends that he has visited many countries of the world already. So this book matched his interest in construction and imaginary travel rather well.

I like that the book links not just buildings but also iconic structures to the geographical locations. It also succintly explains a little bit about everything – heritage structures, skyscrapers, bridges, statues, etc. That makes it a great starting book before we branch off to deepdive into individual topics ourselves.

And if you have an MP3 player that kiddo can self operate, you can even load in the audio file of the book so kiddo can listen to it while looking at the book when you are preoccupied.

Find this book at–

• You can check out this book at quite a couple of NLB Libraries if you reside in Singapore.
• For a copy to keep in your home library, you can also get it from Amazon here.
• Bonus supplementary materials – You can download the UK audio file of the book and activity sheet at the Ladybird Education website. (Login needed)

2. How skyscrapers are built

Up! Up! Up! Skyscraper 《 摩天大楼， 起！起！起！》 by Anastasia Suen

From Anastasia Suen’s (anna-STAY-zhuh SOON) mini comic downloadable here on her website, it appeared a visit to the top of the Empire State Building led her to learn about how tall buildings were built. That resulted in her 2017 book Up! Up! Up! Skyscraper. This book explains step-by-step how skyscrapers are built.

I particularly like this book for its use of thumbnails in one corner of each spread to illustrate the progress of the building being built. They helped provide context to the main illustrations. They also make it so much easier to explain things to my 3.5 year old toddler.

The book takes you through the process – how they first have to put in concrete retaining walls before they can dig down before they can pound concrete piles into the bedrock to hold the building steady, etc, etc.

Find this book at:

• You can check out Up! Up! Up! Skyscraper at quite a few English and Chinese copies at the NLB Libraries if you reside in Singapore.
• For a copy to keep in your home library, the ebook or audiobook versions, you can also get it from Amazon here.

3. How the MRT stations & tunnels are built

How is the MRT System built? by LTA Singapore

This 2019 book by the Land Transport Authority of Singapore is more appropriate for older children. But Little P loved looking at the pictures even at age 2. He enjoyed looking at the construction vehicles in the illustrations and was forever asking for their names.

He bugged me for their names so much, I eventually hunted down a Chinese book called – 工程车大型机械小百科 – which had photos and Chinese names for the machines that I struggled with (Little P and I speak Chinese predominantly at home as part of OPOL).

Unlike Up! Up! Up! Skyscraper which shows step-by-step how a skyscraper is built, How is the MRT System built? highlights specific points of the building process for the MRT station and the tunnels. So you will read about for example,

• impact assessment of the area where the MRT station will be built,
• machines used in soil testing,
• building the concrete retaining walls,
• the machine used to bore the tunnel,
• the drones used to inspect the tunnel, etc

I have to say some of it was rather abstract so reading Up! Up! Up! Skyscraper actually helped us to understand How is the MRT System built better. So in that sense, Up! Up! Up! Skyscraper was the more relatable book than How is the MRT System built.

That said, I do recommend checking out this book if you reside in Singapore and wanted more local reads in your collection.

Find this book at:

• This book does not seem to be available in NLB libraries. I bought our resale copy from Carousell. You can also download and print out the .pdf ebook here.

4. How a library is built

Construction by Sally Sutton《 哐当哐当，去盖楼 》

New Zealand children’s author Sully Sutton wrote a series of books around the construction theme. Construction is one of the books in the Roadworks series. In this book, construction workers build a library step-by-step.

The book is originally written in English but I usually get the Chinese version if there is one for the Chinese vocabulary. That said, while the Chinese translation tries to stay to the style, books dependent on English rhythm and rhyme like this (and also Up! Up! Up! Skyscraper) are best read in their original language.

Printed in large, clear letters, the rhythmic text uses basic vocabulary, strong verbs, and onomatopoeia, making it wonderful to read aloud. 

Mary Jean Smith. Construction review. School Library Journal.

The Roadworks series of books is also great for their inclusion of women and people of colour in the construction work. You can see the books in the series on Sally Sutton’s website here.

Find this book at:

• You can check out this book in English at quite a few NLB Libraries if you reside in Singapore.
• For an English copy to keep in your home library, you can also get it from Amazon here.

5. How a house is built

Let’s build a house together 《 快来！一起盖房子 》by Takeshita, Fumiko

Japanese author Takeshita Fumiko write this originally Japanese picture book – みんなで！いえをたてる (Minna de ie o tateru). The book has since been translated into Chinese with the titles《快来！一起盖房子》and《大家來蓋房子!》. Roughly it translates to Let’s build a house together. And it takes you through the process step by step.

Since this book is of Japanese origin, you can see Japanese accents in the book like the use of tatami as part of the installation process. Also expect it to be more representative of Japanese culture rather than being more inclusive like the English books listed above in this post.

This book is again part of a series of books《 汽车嘟嘟嘟系列 》featuring construction and other vehicles. This series is one of the first Chinese-language books I read to Little P at an early age. Little P loved spotting all the colourful construction vehicles in the series. If you have a Luka reading robot at home, it will be able to read this series of books too.

Find this book at:

• You can check out this book in Chinese at quite a few NLB Libraries if you reside in Singapore.
• For a Chinese copy to keep in your home library, you can also get it from Amazon here.

6. How lifts and escalators are built

Here comes the lift《 电梯来了 》by Kowase, Moriyasu

Now this book unlike the books above does not take you through step-by-step how the lift or the escalator are built into the building. However it helps you explain to your little one how lifts and escalators are built (as in their structure) and how they work in a building. The illustrations are rather helpful in that respect.

Here comes the lift《 电梯来了 》is originally written in Japanese by Kowase Moriyasu. It follows a little boy and his mother who visit a mall in order to buy a birthday present. In the mall, they needed to ride on the lift and the escalator to get to different places, which give us the opportunity to explore how these conveyances work.

We live in a flat on a high floor so it is definitely helpful for helping Little P understand the environment we live in.

If you have a Luka reading robot at home, it will be able to read this book.

Find this book at:

• You can check out this book in Chinese at quite a few NLB Libraries if you reside in Singapore.
• Check if this book is available on Amazon.

Final thoughts: Books About How Buildings Are Built

Books based in reality

The six books listed above are based on reality and fulfil little children’s need to understand the world around them to a greater or lesser extent.

Books like Here comes the lift《 电梯来了 》are also about known experiences like going shopping with their parents. It can perhaps help young children further process their own experiences as well as familiarise themselves with the relevant vocabulary associated with these experiences.

Books with rich language

In our particular case, we also live in an area where there is a lot of construction going on in the last few years. So we definitely see Little P developing very specialised vocabulary to enable him point out the construction vehicles we see along the road that another child living elsewhere may not. This however would not happen if we did not have the many building and construction-related books to furnish us with the specialised vehicle and building-related nomenclature.

That is not to say that it is imperative for a child to know complex machinery names. It really depends on the child’s interests and then have the relevant books with the rich language so that they learn to be familiar, be comfortable and then be confident to use the language.

Books with beautiful illustrations and interesting details

Each of the books above are drawn using specific illustration styles distinct from one another. They are each beautiful in their own way. This exposes young children to different styles of art, and ideally help to develop an appreciation for art and perspective in art.

Details are particularly important. When he was very young, Little P loved to point and name all the vehicles in the book – Let’s build a house together 《 快来！一起盖房子 》. The illustrator had cleverly incorporated not just construction vehicles but also other vehicles that are spotlighted in the other books in the series so that they consistent appear on the roads in every book. This made it a fun spot-the-car-game for the child whenever we flip through any of the books in the series.

In one of the books, Little P was especially enthusiatic about tracking a carton of apples that is making its way from delivery truck to delivery truck as part of its logistics journey from farm to table.

Number of words per page

Some of the books had more words, e.g. How is the MRT system built. A young child rarely has the patience to read the book with you until the end if there are too many words. Hence, the general Montessori-aligned guidance on selecting books that are age-appropriate with regards the volume of text.

Number of words per page – start with few words and build up the narrative as your child grows. A single word is fine for a baby; that single word will become a sentence and then a few sentences, and finally a complex story.

Nruiz. (2019, March 1). Choosing montessori style books for your child. Silverline Montessori.

But sometimes Little P wanted to read a book with too many words because of the illustrations inside. So as parents, we have learnt to summarise the story verbally as we read the book with our little boy and explore and talk about the pictures more or less depending on how energetic or how tired he is already.

Type of book

Now that Little P is 3.5, he can handle paperback books without tearing them. But when he was younger than three (I don’t remember what age exactly), he did tear page in Construction by Sally Sutton《 哐当哐当，去盖楼 》 in half while unsupervised. Oops! Sally Sutton’s Roadworks series is available in board book form.

Thanks for reading 6 picture books about how buildings are built to the end!

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