This article was first published in the "Beijing News Children's Book". Beijing News Children's Books (xjbkids) is the children's book rudder of Book Review Weekly, which has joined forces with many publishing brands to select children's books for readers and answer educational puzzles.
Illustration of the bridge book "The Owl at Home".
When it comes to the classic books in the bridge book, the "Frog and Toad" series must not be bypassed. Its author, Arnold Lobel (1933–1987), was a prominent American children's literature writer and illustrator who wrote illustrations for nearly 100 books in his lifetime, the second book in the "Frogs and Toads" series, "Good Buddies," which won the Newbury HonorAble Mention in 1973, and his 1981 book, Then, Then? Fables for Children won the Caddick Gold Award.
Lobel's style is very concise, the story is humorous and philosophical, and animals are often used as metaphors for lonely people. It may seem unsuitable for children's bright and carefree nature, but 5-year-olds will also inexplicably like it.
The article that the book reviewer takes you to see today is another story of Arnold Lobel, called "The Owl at Home", which is included in the set of books "The Box of Stories That Can't Be Told" produced by Dandelion Children's Bookstore, and the other five stories in this set of books are "Mouse Soup", "Uncle Elephant", "Grasshopper on the Road", "Little Pig", and "Mouse Story Collection" are also written by Arnold Lobel.
The Box of Stories That Cannot Be Told (all 6 volumes), by Arnold Lobel, translated by Ajia, Dandelion Children's Bookstore | Guizhou People's Publishing House, August 2021 edition. Age of readability: 5+.
The author of this article read "The Owl at Home" when he was 5 years old, read it again as an adult and still loves it, and also began to think about what made my childhood self ask my mother to read it over and over again. This also makes people can't help but think about this generation of children who grew up in the rich world of children's books, how will they comment on the books they read when they were children?
Written by | Trayling
01
The children's book White Moonlight in my heart
If I had any children's books White Moonlight, it would probably be "The Owl at Home".
It's a thin bridge book published in 1975 with five short stories about an owl living alone. We don't know where he came from, why he lives alone in the woods, or his first name and surname. Sometimes he acted like a poet of vicissitudes, and sometimes he was more innocent than a child.
"Owl at Home" is a real picture.
The content of the five stories is as follows:
"Guest": The owl was sitting by the fire eating a hot dinner when he suddenly heard a knock at the door, and he guessed that poor winter wanted to come in and warm up, so he opened the door in a friendly way. Unexpectedly, the wind and snow suddenly penetrated into the house and turned everything upside down. The owl managed to drive away the winter, he rekindled the fire, sat back in his chair, and ate dinner quietly.
"Strange Drum Bag": The owl is lying on the bed, and suddenly finds two drum bags under the blanket, he lifts his right foot, the right drum bag moves, lifts the left foot, and the left drum bag also moves. He lifted the blanket, but saw nothing. He thought of many ways, but did not drive away the drum bag, and finally he gave up. He ran to his chair by the fire and finally fell asleep in peace.
Tea of Tears: The owl sits by the fire, intending to make himself a pot of tea for tears. So he began to think about all kinds of sentimental things - a chair with a broken leg, a song with forgotten lyrics, an early morning when no one appreciated... A drop of tears rolled down and filled the teapot, and he boiled the tea and sat down to taste it. "There is a little salty taste, and the tear tea is always very good."
Inside page of "The Owl is At Home".
Upstairs and Downstairs: The owl's house has two floors, and when he's downstairs, he wants to know what's going on upstairs; when he's upstairs, he thinks about downstairs. He wanted to be in two places at the same time, so he began to run back and forth on the stairs. After a full night of running, he was finally exhausted, and he sat down on the tenth step, because it was the middle of the upstairs and downstairs.
"The Owl and the Moon": The owl went out to see the sea, saw the moon rising from the sea, and they became friends. On the way home, the owl found that the moon had been following him, and he had to tell the moon that his house was small and there was nothing to eat to entertain it. After the moon finally disappeared into the clouds, the owl felt a little sad, and he returned to his dark home alone, and suddenly found the moon appearing outside the window, "You are so interesting." The owl felt happy again.
02
The chaotic preference of childhood was the one that confused me the most
The first time I read these stories was at the age of 5, which is probably close to the ideal reader age that this book can predict. However, as I grew up and re-read it again and again, this book also made me realize for the first time that good children's books are completely age-free. It is probably the epitome of the children's book in my heart—the text is simple but contains a flowing poetry, there is some philosophy between the lines, quiet, light, and re-read at every stage of life.
For example, let's talk about "Tea of Tears", adult readers who have seen "Owl at Home" will probably be impressed by this one: the story has an obvious poetry, such as a solo exercise about sadness, a stopped clock, a book with missing pages, leftovers that no one wants to eat... Those tiny, unnoticed mutilations are left in the corners of life, quietly destroyed. Only those who remain sensitive and kind will sincerely feel lonely about it.
"Owl at Home" inside the page real shot.
This is really not like the plot that will appear in children's books, of course, children's books are not all bright and carefree, but to deal with sadness, there are usually specific causes and consequences. So headless, so brainless, so sad for crying, and the list of details that are listed, between sadness and joy, like the texture of prose or poetry, do not treat the reader as a child at all.
I was very impressed with this story, and my mom was very impressed with it. According to her, when I first saw this story at the age of 5, I read it over and over again, and like any child clinging to something, seems to be able to derive mysterious pleasure from repetition.
I can say the reasons why I like this story as an adult, but the obscure and chaotic preference of childhood is the one that confuses me the most. What really impressed me at the age of 5? It's hard to recall how I felt back then. Just as sometimes a child's likes and dislikes are completely metaphysical to me, standing on the other side of time, 5-year-old myself, is like a mystery to myself.
Did I know any abstract words that could be used to describe the story? Such as "romantic", such as "poetic", such as "lonely"? At that time, I believed that all objects had life, so I felt sad for them? Or do I just think it's strange that there are still people in the world who drink tear tea?
03
The tolerance characteristic of children's books healed his grief
Every time I think of this story, I think of a sentence from Luo Yijun's "We Leave from the Dark Tavern at Night": "Why is there no one in your novel who is slightly serious and sad?" Speaking of which, the owl who cooks tear tea is definitely a "serious sad" character.
Regarding "seriousness", I think, this is another reason why "The Owl is At Home" attracted me.
Whether it's inviting a hungry and cold winter to the door to roast the fire, or saying goodbye to the moon solemnly; whether it's weeping over the slightest calamities in life, or pondering (and practicing) the philosophical problems that are here and there, the owl always has a sharp and delicate heart, with goodwill and softness, and with a childlike wholeheartedness, to face the problems of life.
Illustration of "The Owl at Home".
At the age of 5, I was embarrassed by the owl's excessive naivety (not knowing that the drum bag was its own foot, not knowing that the moon would not go home with anyone), but when I reread it, I was struck by this seriousness. Serious sadness, serious happiness, serious thinking about the problems that others take for granted, the owl is really very gentle. If it weren't for his tenderness, these five bland fragments wouldn't even be stories.
Arnold Lobel, the author of the book, in an interview (somewhat cruelly) described the owl as "his grasp of reality is gone" and "there is no sense of gravity to histhinking," which presumably explains why the story of the owl is always accompanied by varying degrees of frustration—the frustration of making friends. The frustration of not being able to grasp one's relationship with the body, and the inevitable frustration of delusional being in two places at the same time.
But fortunately, these setbacks did not bring much harm in the end, and the ends of the five stories all carried a kind of simplicity and warmth that belonged to the family, which may be the tolerance characteristic of children's books, even such an eccentric character can be suitable. And it's probably this eccentricity and tolerance that connects the book to readers of all ages.
04
I felt a strange sense of contentment, sadness and happiness
Arnold Lobel has been called "the writer who respects the wisdom of children the most", and he is best known for his series of friendships, Frogs and Toads, but is also clearly good at lonely and neurotic characters.
Arnold Lobel (1933–1987) was a well-known American children's literature writer and illustrator.
Such characters are rare in children's books, and in fact, the book's various settings: the protagonist (person) who lives alone, the heavy night (time), the ordinary home (place), the adventure (thing) that takes place in the heart, and the illustrations that only use gray and brown are not too typical in children's books.
In the same interview, Lobel acknowledged that the stories were "indeed adult stories, only slightly disguised as children's books." The interviewer Roni Natov gave an interesting answer: "(These books, especially the Frog and the Toad series) have a lot of the subjects that are adult, but they seem to be part of the child's heart. ”
What is a part of the adult's mind that belongs to the child? Do children also have a stronger understanding and acceptance ability in their hearts than adults imagine? "Children may have to go through the same struggles as adults, and that's still the case when they grow up," Robert said. We think we are adults and our emotions are adults, but we are still experiencing everything we experience as children. For him, all readers, whether adult or childhood, are confronted with the fundamental problems of life.
Lobel mentioned that "The Owl at Home" is his most personal book. In the early days of his work, he tried to write "children's stories" and constantly considered "what do children like?" "But I don't feel much about the story I write. Later, he realized that if he wanted to be a true writer, emotions had to come from himself. Therefore, he no longer imagined the floating "children's story" out of thin air, but boldly put personal experience into the book, writing about loss, writing bitterness, writing loneliness, writing philosophy, lifting weights, and treating every reader of a young age equally.
I'm not sure I could understand the meaning of these words when I was a kid. Will I feel respected? Or doesn't it really matter? However, many years later, when I followed my childhood memories and rediscovered this book and this interview, and saw that there had been so much deep emotion poured into the back, and that so many people of different ages had been touched by the story of the owl, I felt a strange satisfaction, like an owl that had made tea of tears, I felt sad and happy.
Resources:
1.An Interview with Arnold Lobel，The Lion and the Unicorn，Volume 1, Number 1,1977，pp. 72-96，https://ur.booksc.eu/book/80440593/d46a53
2.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Lobel