Oriental Network reporters Fu Wenjing and Liu Hao reported on August 17: Shen Yue, the son of Shen Shixi, the king of animal novels, was actually brought up by a python? Why do Shen Shixi's animal novels all end in tragedy? All said "cunning rabbit three caves", how many misunderstandings do we have about rabbits? On the afternoon of August 17, at the 2019 Shanghai Book Fair Shen Shixi "Wild Animal Rescue Station" series of new book launches, the famous writer Shen Shixi and his son Shen Yue, as well as ma Xuanmin and Li Huasanji, members of the "Little War Elephant Team", introduced the new series of books to young readers, and also "exposed" many little-known animal anecdotes.
Animal fiction king Shen Shixi
Shen Shixi lived in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, for 18 years, and in Kunming for another 18 years, and he had dealt with many animals and raised an elephant and a python. Shen Shixi once wrote the story of the elephant as "The Last War Elephant" and the story of the python as "Nanny Python" based on his own personal experience. Shen Shixi has been to many wildlife rescue stations and seen many touching and interesting stories. He always had a wish to write a novel about wildlife shelters. Due to the huge system of novels, Shen Shixi set up a team of "Little War Elephants", composed of Ma Xuanmin, Li Huasanji and his son Shen Yue, who planned to complete 30 animal novels about wildlife rescue. It is reported that there are currently 3 books on the market, namely "Snow Mountain Wolf Soul", "One-Tooth Elephant Funeral" and "Wild Horse Galloping", and there will be 3 more books to meet with readers in October this year.
The scene of the press conference
At the book launch, Shen Shixi told his original intention of creating a wildlife rescue novel. Although the rescue of wild animals seems monotonous and seems to be the same, not to rescue the elderly and incapacitated "old animals", or to rescue "small animals" who have lost the care of their parents and become orphans, "but we write this set of books not to tell everyone how we rescue animals, but to tell everyone that we do not know the survival code and the mysterious animal behavior in wild animals." ”
Shen Shixi said that although today's children can obtain a lot of knowledge by searching and reading popular science books on the Internet, the animal world is still very mysterious and interesting, and there are many little-known stories. For example, the idiom "three caves of cunning rabbits", everyone usually thinks that the rabbit is very cunning, in order to escape for life, so three nests are prepared, if you encounter predators to hunt, you can escape to different nests to hide, "sounds a bit derogatory. "In reality, there will indeed be some rabbits, with several nests, but they are not simply used to escape." Shen Shixi introduced that only female rabbits will build multiple nests, and the number depends on how many baby rabbits are born. "If you have 3 children, you will make 3 nests, and if you have 4, you will make 4." Because the rabbit is a very weak animal, it is easy to be eaten if it encounters natural enemies and cannot fight. If you have 4 babies, all of them are placed in a nest, and you will be caught in the face of natural enemies. Therefore, in order to spread this risk, the female rabbit will find multiple nests at the same time, and put each rabbit in a different nest. Shen Shixi pointed out that the so-called "three caves of cunning rabbits" actually contain great maternal love, but they are misunderstood by humans, and there are many such stories.
Writer Shen Yue is the son of Shen Shixi, although his father's "king of animal novels" has a dazzling aura, but Shen Yue "exposed himself" at the press conference, and never read his father's books when he was a student. The reason is that Shen Shixi's masterpiece "Nanny Python", at that time, Shen Yue's classmates came to inquire, and it was written in the book that Shen Yue was brought up by a python from childhood, whether this matter was true or false. So Shen Yue went home and asked his father, "My father said excitedly, absolutely!" I went back to tell my classmates, and as a result, the classmates stopped playing with me, saying that they should stay away from me, and I had the smell of pythons on me. Because of this incident, Shen Yue never read his father's novels. However, after having a daughter, because Shen Shixi's animal novels are designated parent-child books by the school, Shen Yue was "forced" to read his father's books, and he could not imagine that the more he looked at them, the better he looked, and all the works were finished, and even the idea of engaging in children's literature creation was started. Later, at the instigation of her younger daughter who wanted to see "Daddy's Works", Shen Yue quit her job and devoted herself to creation.
Ma Xuanmin, a member of the "Little War Elephant" team, revealed that the most "sad" question he had been asked was that a young reader once asked why Shen Shixi's animal novels all ended in tragedy, which made him "feel ashamed in his heart." However, the living situation of wild animals in the wild is very cruel, not as beautiful as imagined, "maybe a second ago is still the king of the hundred beasts, after this second may become someone else's plate food, mouth food." 」 No matter how strong an individual animal is, when it is old, it is difficult to avoid a tragic ending. ”
Ma Xuanmin frankly said that the tradition believes that wildlife rescue is when an animal encounters difficulties, such as natural disasters or injuries, and after rescue, rewilding, and then returning to nature after recovering its health. "When an animal is coming to the end of its life, does it still make sense to rescue it?" Yes yes! Nowadays, the concept of wildlife rescue is different. Ma Xuanmin said that saving animals is to save our hearts, "When we send dying animals to the end of life peacefully, our rescue is also very meaningful." "Ma Xuanmin's work "The Funeral of the One-Toothed Elephant" tells the story of how to help the dying old elephant to the end of life safely, which is worth thinking about for every reader.