Wen 丨 that swallow mother
While reading picture books with my daughter, I read some books about reading together.
"Whale Riding Journey" and "Seeds of Happiness" focus on co-reading and understanding "Picture Book Master" highlights the evaluation of characters "How Good Picture Books Are" is biased towards content analysis The Reading Handbook is a complete methodology
To be able to systematically introduce the history of picture books and the stories behind them, the "Picture Book History" written by Teacher A Jia is the first one.
Ajia
Non-famous court clerks, famous children's book promoters, manuscript tractors, experienced the split life of "reading fairy tales during the day and reading fairy tales at night", witnessed the development of domestic picture books in the past twenty years, and spent ten years of painstaking efforts to collect the centuries of world picture books into a book - "A Small History of Picture Books", which can be described as unprecedented.
"A Short History of Picture Books" takes the development of British and American picture books as the main line, from the beginning to exploration, from trend to innovation, and details the history of picture books in the past century.
Although it is called a small history, the book is as thick as green bricks, the content is detailed, and the dense Song characters fill 300 pages; although it is a tome, the author is kung fu, the text is in-depth and simple, approachable, as if it is face-to-face small talk with Teacher Ajia; the story is coherent and there is suspense at the end of each article, which leads people to read and read again, and unconsciously walk through the children's book for a hundred years with Teacher Ajia face to face.
Women's Guardian embarks on a picture book journey
Looking back at the history of picture books, we can find that whether it is Miss Potter, the originator of picture books, Miss Moore, the pioneer of children's books, or May Massy, the leading figure of children's book editing, picture books from scratch are inseparable from women. Without women's persistence, there would be no picture books today.
01 Miss Potter and her Tale of The Rabbit
Because of the change in adults' concepts of children, books specifically for children gradually appeared, and Miss Potter's "The Story of Bid Rabbit" published in 1902 was recognized as the beginning of picture books.
Miss Potter's family was wealthy and had no worries about food and clothing, but without the company of her parents, her childhood was not happy. She is intelligent and sensitive, does not have many friends, and likes to tell stories to children.
With the encouragement of her friends, she adapted the letters she wrote to the children into a story, and with the help of editor Norman, "The Story of Bid Rabbit" was published with great success. Since then, Miss Porter and Norman have joined forces to launch many small books one after another, all of which have been successful.
However, the publisher wanted her to repeat herself out of interest, and Miss Potter was tired of it, so she reduced the frequency of her creation and devoted her energy to something more meaningful: protecting the ecology of the Lake District.
To this day, no creator has surpassed Miss Potter in the perfect unity of scientific rigor, fairy tale interest and painting artistry, and the originator of picture books is well deserved.
02 The guardian of children's books represented by Miss Moore
At the beginning of the establishment of the American Library Association in 1876, people of insight proposed that public libraries should serve minors; in the early 20th century, children's reading rooms became the standard in American public libraries, which gave birth to a new professional group: children's librarians.
Due to the general contempt of men in the field of children's books, the early children's librarians were almost all women, who knew very much about children's books, loved children very much, and fundamentally hoped that the next generation would become better, and most of them chose not to marry for life.
In 1921, Miss Moore, then director of the Children's Library at the New York Public Library, visited Miss Porter in England, and the two saw each other at first sight, and then vigorously promoted the exchange of Children's Books between Britain and the United States.
Under the impetus and influence of the early "guardians of children's books" represented by Ms. Moore, the demand for good children's books and new children's books in the children's book market is increasing, and the Newberry Award for text authors and the Caldecott Award for illustrators came into being.
03 Children's book editor represented by May Massey
May Massey was one of the most important founders of the American picture book, and she unearthed and nurtured a large number of very talented and very loyal authors. She had two skills: she was very precise about the cost of picture books; she was particularly popular among children's librarians, and she had a close personal relationship with Miss Moore. She is an unrivaled winner.
Although children's book editors do not create children's books, they are good at tapping excellent children's book creators, the so-called "Maxima often exists, but Bole does not often have".
A hundred schools of thought are competing to promote the prosperity of picture books
In the early 1950s, just after world war II, Europe was in ruins, and the United States became the leader of the Western world. Under the influence of the progressive education movement, the field of picture books took the lead in entering an unprecedented period of joy, which in turn set off an international trend.
01 The joyous years of strange people
The Bank Street Institute of Education Experimental Group is an experimental and exploratory team. Whether it is the initiator Lucy Michelle, her proud disciple Margaret Brown, or the leading figure Lucy Krauss, they all advocate the creative concept of "here and now", emphasizing that children's stories should be consistent with the life experiences of children today. Although their ideas were strongly opposed by Ms. Moore, and even once missed the grand prize, they were very popular with the children.
Musical superstar Kay Thompson and his work "Eloise" entered the children's book circle. The protagonist of the story, Aiylos, lives in a luxury suite on the top floor of the Plaza Hotel in New York, forever only six years old, living an unscrupulous life. Such a non-mainstream work can be said to be a strange flower.
Dr. Seuss's work seems crazy, but its practical words are condensed, very rhyming, a good helper of language enlightenment, a model of edutainment; Ursula is inspired by the children's lips saying "I can read, I can read" but there is no book to read, and the brand "I Can Read" dedicated to young readers is unmatched.
02 A world of children's books where cultures blend
The rapid development of American picture books is closely related to immigrants. In the 1950s and 1960s, a group of picture book geniuses emerged in the field of children's books in the United States, all of whom were immigrants within three generations, especially Jewish immigrants.
Maurice Sandak, Shel Silverstein, Ruth Klaus, Ezra Gyz, William Stark, H.A. Ray and Margaret Ray, Tommy Wenger, Ari Carr... These thunderous masters are immigrants.
Cultural integration is of great significance to world peace. The International Hans Christian Andersen Prize (IBBY) was originally established to promote the international exchange of children's books, it does not reward a work, but praises all the works and contributions of a living writer or illustrator in the field of children's literature. Founder Ms. Lepman firmly believes: "Even if it's just for children, there should be no more war." ”
03 The trend of internationalization affects countries around the world
The development of Japanese picture books is inseparable from the efforts of Nao Matsui, the "father of Japanese picture books". With great vision and open-mindedness, he discovered picture book masters such as Mitsuya Anno and Juki Akabane, and asserted: "The success of Japan's post-war education is entirely due to picture books." ”
Although French picture books only really started in the 1980s, because there was no shortage of writers and illustrators in France, the team of picture book creators quickly grew. Picture book writers such as Ponti, Olivier Tarek, André Deon, and Elvie Dulai are very popular in China, and the popularity of "Chicken Carmela" in China in recent years is even higher than that of the French mainland.
German picture books are mainly concentrated in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and have had a great influence on the development of picture books in China in the past 20 years. Influenced by language and culture, German picture books usually have a large amount of text and a serious overall style, but they have considerable depth of thinking, and adults also benefit a lot from reading them.
Chinese mainland original picture books only started around 2002, 100 years later than the United Kingdom and the United States, 50 years later than Japan, and 30 years later than Taiwan. However, with the Chinese mainland as a whole pay more and more attention to picture books, more and more readers are willing to pay, more and more children's book promotion agencies, children's book studios and publishing houses, and original picture books are booming.
Picture book author with flesh and blood
A separate part of the book is set aside to introduce the picture book creator, which is also my favorite part. In this section, you can learn the story behind the creation of many picture books, and the author is no longer the name on the cover, but a flesh-and-blood character. When you read a picture book again, you will have more feelings.
When we are impressed by the exquisite and luxurious costumes in "The World of The Rabbit", we can remember that Miss Potter is sensitive and knowledgeable about clothing, and has repeatedly gone to the South Kensington Museum Costume Hall to sketch, and various styles of clothing are handy to serve picture books.
When we are touched by Grandpa Carl's childlike and childish animals, we can remember what we see that originated from Ari Carr's kindergarten complex, and his happiest state when creating art is to draw like a child.
When we are touched by Bai Xina's works, we can remember that her famous work "Cloud Bread" was kidnapped by the overlord clause of the publishing house, and once fell into depression, and it was very difficult to create in the early stage.
The story has just begun
Picture books have gone through a hundred years, gone through bloody rain and wind, and rejoiced years, and are now thriving and thriving. Today's picture books are developing in two directions: one is constantly innovating and changing, and the other is quietly groping for the most fundamental things in story and art.
Picture books reflect human inquiry into the self, and perhaps the most exciting chapter of picture books has just begun.
I appreciate Ajia's attitude toward reading: a person who reads 1,000 picture books has 1,000 observations of life. Life is particularly long, particularly wide, and particularly scattered. Find a starting line at will, run in which direction you want, as long as he is happy, as long as he can achieve something.
In the dead of night, I ask myself, what is the purpose of reading picture books for? Is it to let her learn knowledge? Is it to let her learn skills? Or is it just to let her learn something?
None of them, but to plant seeds in her heart. Reading without him, only to please yourself and enrich your heart.
When she grows up, she may be confined to the kitchen and love, but she will also think of the mountains, lakes and seas that she has seen in books, the vast world.