"Shadow Emperor" Zhang Yi once broke the news in the program, when he was a child, he was particularly skinny, he once peed on the head of the chicken, and the "angry" rooster chased all over the yard; he once fed rabbits to eat green onions, and the rabbit was so hot that he knocked open the cage door; when the sun was hot, he guarded the ant hole and held up an axe to smash the ants...
Whose childhood doesn't have one or two troubles? Compared with Zhang Yi's revelations in the program, this one is more violent. Liu Maoning actually made his childhood troubles into a picture book - "Grandma's Blue Tin Cabinet Wheelchair".
Liu Maoning is an animation director, picture book and comic book author, and his animation works have won many international awards. In 2019, the animated short film "Me and the Magnet and a Dead Friend" was shortlisted for the student unit of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France.
In 2021, based on his real childhood experience, he created the picture book work "Grandma's Blue Tin Cabinet Wheelchair", which was released for the first time in the summer as one of the unit stories of the first original picture book animation film "Toward the Bright Side" in China.
This story is the author Liu Maoning's true record of life in his hometown.
The story is very simple, the protagonist of the story, "I", is a little boy who loves to play, and is asked by his mother to take care of his grandmother who has bad legs and feet, while "I" only want to play with my friends.
One day, "I" found the money my grandmother had hidden in the wheelchair of the blue tin cabinet, so I secretly took the money to buy my favorite snacks to eat...
The story tells the story of "I" getting along with my grandmother, showing the traditional Chinese family's family affection model. The story of a "bad" child made me read a lot of love and regret.
Although at the beginning "I" was willing to watch my grandmother eat because I stole my grandmother's money and felt guilty, my grandmother's love has always been there. When "I" cried, Grandma warmed "me" with her embrace;
After that, "I" helped Grandma find a comb and hung it around Grandma's neck, everything was so natural, all because of love.
Of course, there are also regrets in this love, because "I" once stole my grandmother's money to buy snacks, but I have not had the courage to confess to my grandmother, which has become a piece of "I"'s heart disease, which has not been put down for many years, which is also the main reason why the author wrote this picture book.
Yes, we always feel that coming to Japan is long, but we don't know when the time is waiting. The biggest pain in life is probably this "son wants to raise but does not wait". Mom also wanted to buy an electric blanket for my grandmother, who had been sitting on the bed for many years, but she was delayed for one reason or another.
Maybe that's the real life. He told the children to cherish the present and cherish the people in front of them.
The wheelchair in the picture book was also unexpected. Speaking of wheelchairs, in my memory, it is the kind with two big wheels, the kind that can be pushed and walked. I didn't expect that my grandmother's wheelchair in the book was the kind of cheap wheelchair made from a welding factory.
An iron box welded with 4 wheels and steel pipes as handles is a wheelchair. This wheelchair is cheap but practical, and the cabinet can hold things. This is the prototype of the "blue tin cabinet wheelchair" in the story.
Looking at such a wheelchair, we were all at once transported to that era.
The background of the story is the countryside of Henan, and the picture depicts and shows the labor of rural farmers, children playing persimmons, craftsmen walking in the streets and alleys, and snacks and burnt sticks from childhood, etc., which are very life-like.
When I was a child, there was also a persimmon tree in front of my house, and every time the persimmons were not ripe, a few of our children had already begun to pick them. Because at that time there was nothing delicious, hungry. The persimmons that were beaten down could not open their mouths, so they could only be given to their mothers, who soaked them in lime water and let them sit for a period of time before they could eat.
When I was a child, we also liked to watch those craftsmen walking the streets and alleys, as long as they heard the shouting, they all ran over, listened to the sound of popcorn, and were afraid and liked, they liked the liveliness, smelling corn, and the saliva was going to come out.
If my mother gave us corn for a little popcorn, I don't know how happy it would be? "I" stuck a burnt stick in my finger, almost all children did it at that time.
The story is very simple, but the colors are very rich, and the author uses highly saturated colors to portray the inner activities of the characters.
When the mother gave grandma noodles, the color of the painting chose a white background, because the mother's kindness to the grandmother was simple and selfless; the picture of "I" serving food to the grandmother became gray or black, because "I" was reluctant and just wanted to go out and play;
When "I" stole my grandmother's money to buy snacks, the color of "I" willingly serving food turned a warm yellow, and my interaction with my grandmother also turned yellow.
The author arranged the death of his grandmother in the winter, the endless white, the snow turned the mountains and rivers white, and also covered up all the bad things.
This story, although a little sad, is very touching; it is a story of a "bad" child, but it is full of love; it is a simple story, but it is also a story of redemption. Liu Maoning reconciles with your past self in this way, and you can also share the secret and heal yourself.