The Chinese New Year: The Nian Monster is a pre-intermediate (900 words) Chinese reader about the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival), telling the story of the monster Nian, a story related to the origin of the festival. The story is told using concise language and fantastic illustrations. A wordlist is provided for the story in the book, and small exercises and a passage for extended reading are provided after the story to help students to do self-evaluations and teachers to conduct classroom activities. A free CD-ROM included narrates the story, the passage for extended reading and the wordlist in the book.