What does the future look like? This is a problem that we cannot predict. However, how we will recall the present moment in the future is something we can influence. Although life and years have different stages, they are not isolated compartments, in one stage after another, too many tiny details and memories, forming an invisible silk thread, re-intertwining the time scattered in the years.
Memory is the key to opening these threads, and words and books are where we collect the memory key. In the blink of an eye, another year has passed, and in this year's time, there may be a lot of new books sliding past you, leaving no trace of excess, but there will also be many bookmarks that will remain in the page number of your life. And what we do every year is to share these books that can become the pages of readers' lives.
Perhaps, in the feedback of some books, our ideas are not consistent, but "public position, professional character, independent thought, realistic feelings"—this simple sixteen words, which has been repeated for 17 years, is our most sincere starting point.
With this in mind, we have selected 82 books worth reading from this year's publications, covering literature, history, social sciences, art, children, economics, life and more. When the future, we recall the past year, these good books will become a reef inhabited in the sea of memory, and with this foothold, our future memories will be clear, so that along these reefs, towards a more exploratory future.
May you see so many tears and laughter
No more fear
Turn a new page
2021 Beijing News annual reading recommendation shortlist
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Children and Education
Where did the Fat Goldfish go? 》
Author: Chen Sai
Illustrated by: Liu Chang
Version: Fantasy Nation | Zhejiang Children's Publishing House
2021.6
How do you explain death to your child? There are too many picture books that have given answers, but this picture book is not intended to stick to one explanation. Several kindergarten children surrounded a dead fat goldfish, guessing where it had gone. Each child strives to mobilize the existing knowledge, and the Meng Po in the East and the mermaid in the West have become the clues for them to find a home for the fat goldfish. While adults are still struggling with how to explain death to their children, children have already solved death in their own way. Their interpretations of the world are diverse and rich, diluting the sadness and helplessness that come with the loss of life.
Why are picture books so good? 》
Author: Zhu Ziqiang
Version: Pu Pu Lan Picture Book Museum | New Century Press
After the "double reduction policy", the significance of picture book reading for quality education has become more important. But picture books have long been used as tools for indoctrination, but their literary, artistic, scientific, and philosophical and psychological implications have been ignored. Zhu Ziqiang combines picture book reading with children's mental growth, which provides a variety of observation angles and solutions for problems such as narrow vision of picture book research and solidified topics.
"Walking Trilogy" - "Walking", "Camping", "River Tour"
Author: Da Wu
Version: Pu Pu Lan Picture Book Museum | Twenty-first Century Publishing House Group
2021.5
The works of "post-90s" picture book creator Dawu have never been related to preaching, and in the "Walking Trilogy", he especially shows the characteristics of casual creation, and he also created a theme song for this set of books. The "Walking Trilogy" is a story that takes place in the early morning, noon and night. The brothers took a boat to take a boat to take a river trip, walk, camp, and ask each other questions about what they saw on the way, which was interesting and fantasy. If everyone is the director of their own thoughts, then no matter where we go, as long as we dare to imagine and ask, even if there is no fairy tale in life, we can live like a fairy tale.
"Big City, Little You"
Author: [Plus] Sidney Smith
Translator: Fan Xiaoxing
Version: Fantasy Nation | Twenty-first Century Publishing Group
What is it like to be small and in a big city? The book depicts the loneliness of a child looking for his cat in the snow, and the lost cat is equally lonely and helpless. The large and small frames in the picture are as close and pushed farther and farther as a movie lens, expressing multiple faces of the same scene. Although a blizzard has the ability to transform a city, the loneliness of the individual can be redeemed from the search for the beloved.
"Think Like Leonardo da Vinci"
Author: [Italian] Laura Manaressi [Italian] Giovanni Mana
Translator: Mao Wenzheng Xiang Jingya
Version: Rover | CITIC Press
2021.2
This book skillfully integrates the precious manuscripts of the great polymath leonardo da Vinci into the illustrations of various sketches, technical drawings, astronomical studies, letters and other precious manuscripts, stringing together the basic knowledge of various fields of natural science, not only showing that geniuses have promoted the progress of science with their extraordinary creativity, exuberant curiosity, extraordinary thinking and inexhaustible internal drive, but also providing a model for the creation of popular science picture books with this novel content organization.
"Childhood Art Museum"
Author: Li Jie
Version: Lefu 丨Beijing United Publishing Company
2021.9
For children, adults will always fall into two kinds of misunderstandings: or that the child is an appendage of the adult, so the child's right to express himself is restricted; or that the child is different from the adult, so that effective communication between them is blocked. But in curator Li Jie's Childhood Art Museum, children are independent creators, explorers, and rule-breakers who have their own observations, thoughts and creations about the world. It's an ideal art gallery and a truly kid-friendly space. After all, the biggest common denominator between art and children is that they are pluralistic, open, and have no standard answers.
Raising Good Children: Ethics and Child Development
Author: Xu Jing
Translator: Zhu Yuqing
Version: Peppermint Experiment | East China Normal University Press
We tend to think of moral norms as "imposed" by society in the minds of children, and that these norms are internalized primarily through rewards and punishments. But this is not the case, children have their own choices and coping. From the fieldwork of a middle-class community kindergarten, Xu Jing saw the subjectivity of children in understanding those contradictory external moral norms, showing us children's imperceptible but diverse and common moral abilities.
"Pulling the Big Kid"
Author: An Chao
Edition: Social Sciences Literature Press
2021.7
In China, how to "pull a child up" is not only a complicated and trivial science, but also an important cultural phenomenon, and its complexity is far beyond the western classical theoretical framework. The author An Chao uses oral history and ethnographic methods to study his family's genealogy and reveal the diverse faces of folk parenting. This book is a unique reflection on many of the classic theories of pedagogy, while at the same time combining the author's strong personal concern. As a scholar from the countryside, An Chao is committed to excavating the voice of the underlying educational practice that has been drowned out by history, and the sincerity of his account and writing is touching.
Emotional Learning: How Children's Literature Teaches Us to Feel Emotions
Author: [de] Ute Frefot et al
Translator: Huang Huaiqing
Version: Guangqi | Shanghai People's Publishing House
Children love to read stories and learn about anxiety, trust, piety, compassion, empathy, shame, pain and other emotions by knowing the characters in the story. Starting from the history of emotions from an anthropological and global perspective, this book analyzes the diversification of the meaning of the word "emotion" in about 60 international best-selling children's books and parenting manuals that have been classicized, and lets us see the powerful power of children's literature to construct and shape individual emotions, emotions and feelings.
Author | Editorial Board of Book Review Weekly
Edit | Qingqingzi
Proofreading | Xue Jingning