"Deer from the Snowy Mountains", written by Yan Haijing, illustrated by Wang Yi, | of The Babe Bear Children's Bookstore Xinjiang Youth Publishing House, September 2021.
Age of readability: 7+
This is the latest in the "Little Divine Beast" Chinese original fantasy story series. The other 6 books in this series are "The Thief's Garden", "Silver Bracelet", "Dao Ma Dan", "The Fox's Mask", "Tanuki Cat Stage", "Afanmi's River", in addition to "The Thief's Garden", other works are created by Yan Haijing, extracting the fairy ghost stories of lynx, cuckoo fox and tanuki cat in traditional Chinese culture as creative materials.
The traditional elements used in this "Deer from the Snow Mountain" include the white deer (known as a god in ancient China, and the only phoenix and the unicorn can be compared), the Fu Bao (originated from the Qin Dynasty and flourished in the Han and Tang Dynasties), and the mountain god (a very grounded god), stringing together a story of a brother and sister who iced the previous suspicions.
Picture books with traditional cultural themes, if you directly tell the familiar story again, you can think of the ending when you read the beginning, and the story is easy to flow without novelty; if it is adapted too much, it is difficult to get the reader's recognition. The characteristic of this book and other books in this series is that it only adopts some elements of traditional culture, but it writes a new story that conforms to modern values, paved with literature, and does not read to the last page and guess the ending, which points to the topic that modern people pay attention to.
For example, "The Deer Comes from the Snowy Mountains" explores how the love of parents should be viewed when there are two children in the family. "Silver Bracelet" adopts the strange idea that eating the heart of a cuckoo fox can cure the disease, but the ending is to explore whether it is possible to sacrifice others for self-benefit. "The Mask of the Fox" uses the legend that the fox can conjure up a beautiful face, and explores which is more important, beauty or heart beauty.
When the Monster Knocks, by Patrick Nice, illustrated by Jim Kai, translated by Wang Zuning, Sunray Press, July 2021.
Age of readability: 9+
This book has a movie of the same name, released in 2016, more well-known, I believe many people have seen, although the evaluation is mixed, but the feeling of reading the book is definitely different from the movie.
The protagonists of the story are a tree monster and a 13-year-old boy named Connor. There are three logical lines in the story, one is the boy and the tree monster, one is the boy and the school classmate, and the other is the boy and the family, and the core of the story will eventually fall in the boy's relationship with the family.
The tree monster appears in the opening chapter of the boy's dreamless experience, which is a little scary to read at first, but after the tree monster comes to "knock on the door" many times and tells the boy three stories, it becomes "cute". Why would a tree monster ask the boy to tell a fourth story on his own? This suspense and the interpretation of the moral of the three stories have been hanging the reader's appetite. By the end, you will find that these stories are a healing for boys who are unwilling to face their own hearts.
The novel won the Carnegie Prize for Literature in 2012 and the Grenadines Prize for illustration. It is also the first book since the creation of both awards to be awarded simultaneously. The New York Times commented on it: "Overcoming grief, fear and anger, Connor came to a place where he would eventually be healed... It is a gift to those who have lost loved ones and a powerful work of art. ”
LaRousse Encyclopedia of Child Psychology: 60 Big Life Questions that Help Children Grow, by Carin Simone, Illustrated by Isabelle Margaret, Sunshine Blog | Beijing Daily Press, September 2021.
Age of readability: 5+
LaRouce is a French publishing house founded in 1852 and for more than 150 years has focused on publishing excellent encyclopedias and reference books. With Larousse as the keyword, you can search for a lot of popular science children's books.
The theme of this book is "Child Psychology" and the author is a French clinical psychologist and psychotherapist. In the book, she answered questions from 60 elementary school students, about life, emotions, love, friendship, death, school, family, social life, fear, faith... Each one is a question and an answer.
From the table of contents, the book is very similar to the questions asked by children in the philosophy children's books, but the answer given by the author is based on psychology, mostly exploring the emotional connection between the individual and others. For example, "Why are my parents angry?" The answer to this question given by the author is: parents remind you in an angry way that you have done things that you should not do, or that you should not say things, and want to tell you where the boundaries are. In "Why does the teacher keep screaming?" In this question, the answer given by the author is: please prepare a shell like a turtle for yourself, and when the teacher's scream makes you uncomfortable, you will go inside and hide for a while.
The author analyzes his relationship with himself, with his parents, with his teachers, and with his classmates from the perspective of the child. Sometimes you need to take the initiative to communicate and negotiate boundaries, sometimes you need to avoid it appropriately, and sometimes you need to listen carefully to your own voice, so this book is more suitable for parent-child reading.
"Busy Dad", written/painted by Li Qiaoqiao, love tree | Sunray Press, September 2021.
Age of readability: 3+
It's a wordless book. Dad carried the computer on his back, on the phone, and took his son on an outing alone, but he was always busy with work, and the lonely son curiously followed Little Red Riding Hood into the elf kingdom and became friends with the elves. But the son's noise was too loud, and the father gradually turned into an angry bear... It may seem like a somewhat heavy topic, but the book is full of cheerful colors, and the boys and elves have a lot of fun, playing with the water, exploring the forest together, and disturbing Dad together.
Wordless books are also a test of the ability to read pictures, there are several small elves with different shapes and jumping out of the picture are created by the author in combination with the cultural characteristics of China's ethnic minorities, can friends of all sizes find them?
A Brief History of Mankind: Pillars of Civilization, by [Israel] Yuval Harari, ed. [Belgium] David van der Mollon, [French] Daniel Casanavel, translated by Wang Hui, See city-state | CITIC Publishing Group, October 2021.
The second book of A Brief History of Humanity (Knowledge Comics) is finally available. Despite the huge aura of "Yuval + A Brief History of Mankind" overhead, people who have read the first "Brief History of Mankind (Knowledge Comics): The Birth of Mankind" know that the comic version is not simply cutting and diluting the text version and then adding illustrations, but adding a lot of new content, which can be said to be a positive and reinterpretation of the text version of "A Brief History of Mankind", both some interesting interactions and a lot of humorous settings, reading it will almost make people forget that this is a book about history, after all, in our habitual cognition, History is always associated with boring historical materials, and these historical materials are inexplicably very separate from each other.
But the soul of the comic version is still Yuval's personal subjective comment on history, and his interlocking discussion in the text version also continues into the comic version. The second book of the comic book, "Pillars of Civilization", can basically correspond to parts 2 and 3 of the text version, and the structure is very clear, from the occurrence of the agricultural revolution to how humans unconsciously became "slaves" of wheat (just like Pavlov when he observes the conditioned reflexes of dogs, who can say that dogs are not observing Pavlov's conditioned reflexes?). ), and was thus bound to complex classes on the basis of which religions and various codes of law were born. Are humans masters of plants and animals? In response, the comic version also gives animals and plants the opportunity to express their ideas.
Some commentators have suggested that the comic version of A Brief History of Mankind is a book that is suitable for seeing from 8 years old to 80 years old. In the character setting of the manga, if the reader's knowledge reserve is not enough, then only these characters can be read as comic characters, but if the reader has enough knowledge reserves, he can read the special meaning of many characters, and many comics are imitating famous paintings in art history. So as the knowledge increases, the book can be read again and again, and just like the American drama, new characters and new settings have been added in season 2, and readers are best to read the first book before reading the second book.
In general, historical knowledge cannot be summarized by some famous events, and it is interesting to understand how it has slowly occurred over hundreds of years from small things to small things. History also needs to be questioned repeatedly, and there are a lot of guided questions in the comic version, and following these questions to find answers, there is little need to use deliberate memory. Perhaps Yuval would also welcome readers to question his historical answers.
"Stinky Socks Are Gone", by Dai Yun and Illustrated by Gollum, Tiantian Publishing House, September 2021.
Age of readability: 2+
This is a three-dimensional flip book, and the simple three-dimensional effect is suitable for young babies to read.
After getting rid of the little feet of the children, the smelly socks were happy and broken, and they "wandered" around the house, ran under the cushions of the sofa, hid in books, burrowed under the bed, and hid behind flowerpots. Puppies like to play with stinky socks the most, tracking the traces of stinky socks everywhere, and finally sending them to the washing machine.
"Chocolate War" and other classic works of Makoto Oishi (Pinyin edition, all 5 volumes), by [Japanese] Makoto Oishi, [Japanese] Kitada Takashi / Watanabe Yuichi, translated by Tian Xiujuan, Relay Press, September 2021.
This set of 5 books, namely "Chocolate War", "Kogo's Bicycle", "Mom is hospitalized", "Pelican Daddy's Gift", "Daddy's Sunday", "Chocolate War" is one of the most well-known, first published in Japanese in 1965, is a deeply influential work in the history of Japanese children's literature in the 20th century, which has been adapted into a movie. It is about a war between adults and children, and has been Chinese version since the 1990s.
Among the five books, "Chocolate War", "Xiao Wu's Bicycle", "Mom is Hospitalized" are all new editions of the old books, and "The Pelican Daddy's Gift" and "Daddy's Sunday" are new books published. This edition has pinyin and is suitable for children aged 5-9 who are preparing and reading independently.
The author Oishi is really a famous Japanese children's literature writer, this set of books is simple, there is no complex long sentences and phrases, the story is closely related to the children's learning life, not only can narrow the distance with young readers, but also help young readers solve some of the confusion in daily life, such as writing essays, understanding parents, etc.
Inside page of Daddy's Sunday.
Notes on Ocean Anatomy, by Julia Rossman, translated by Haohao Wu, Hunan Science and Technology Press, September 2021.
There are many popular science books for young children about the ocean and marine life, but this book is a progressive version, suitable for teenagers who love the ocean and pay attention to environmental protection.
How did the water "universe" under the waves form? Why is the sea salty? How many waves are there in a group? How many types of sand are there on the beach? From coral reefs to polar ice seas, from tube worms in the abyss of the seabed to peeping killer whales... The author makes the sea into a beautiful "artistic slice" and explores all areas of the ocean with a rich theme panorama, which can be said to be an encyclopedia about the ocean.
The title picture comes from the picture book "Busy Daddy" produced by the Love Tree.
Edit | Shen Chan, Luo Dong
Proofreading | Lucy