What are the criteria for choosing books for your child?
This is a difficult question to answer.
In the process of making reading recommendations, we can follow a very simple principle, that is, "diversity".
To put it simply, in the works that children read, there cannot only be one kind of adult looking at children, nor can there be only a single expectation of adults for children.
Man is not in a state of truth, goodness, and beauty all the time
Most of the excellent children's books try to portray the universal values of human beings for children. For example, the exploration and pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty, the understanding of love, the understanding of growth, the expectation that children can develop in a good direction, and so on.
Robert McCloskey, "Little Selze Blueberry"
However, human nature is very complex, and people are not in a state of truth, goodness and beauty all the time. It's not like you can do good things all the time, and you don't do bad things at all.
Don't talk about children, even we adults are growing up in this journey. Even now, can we face ourselves in the bravest, most sincere, and most authentic way at all times?
Rebecca Patterson, "My Day of Shouting"
But when we grow up as adults, we often forget how we ourselves learned and grew up in the midst of some mistakes, experienced the boundaries of morality in doing bad things, experienced the rules of society, and internalized some experiences into our own code of conduct.
Each of our minds is dynamically changing between the poles of good and bad.
Children's literature should have children's own vision
We also frequently receive some questions from mothers about choosing books. For example, the child in the book is mischievous, and I am afraid that my child will read it and learn the same as he learned. For example, in the process of co-reading, the child likes to identify with the bad characters in it, shouldN't I read this kind of book to him? There are even some books that are not good enough, but my children especially like to read, what to do? Can I ban it?
John Burningham, "It's a Secret"
The practical answer to these questions today's topic is a good solution, that is, understanding. Because the story of the "bad boy" actually corresponds to the very typical theme of "naughty boy" in the development process of children's literature.
Under the study of child psychology and the development of children's views, we have found that in the early educational literature of the positive growth type of children who were full of adult hopes, there was no way to meet the rapid development of the world.
The development of society has reached the point where it is necessary to create new generations of people, and it is necessary for these people to have a completely new way of thinking. Then, the original traditional adult-centered education cannot keep up.
[Australia] Chen Zhiyong's "Summer Code"
Therefore, children's literature should not only have the eyes of adults looking at children, but also the eyes of children themselves.
The theme of "Naughty Boy" is more sought after by children
Of course, such a vision has always existed, but they are not mainstream works for a long, long time, but the works under this theme are actually more enthusiastically pursued by children.
For example, the earliest naughty boy theme work should probably be regarded as "The Adventures of the Bulldog King". It tells the story of a baron named Minhhowson who travels bizarrely on many occasions. He was a german aristocrat in the 18th century, who traveled to many places and came back to tell everyone about his strange experiences.
[English] Nick Sharat "Witty Daisy" series
Because of their peculiar colors, these stories were very widely circulated, and later they were compiled and recreated by a writer named Raspe, which is the "The Adventures of the Bragging King" that we see today.
A work that seems to adults to be based entirely on nonsense and bragging, but because of its peculiar imagination and children's thinking, it has been loved by children around the world.
[de] Alexander Steven Smyer "Cow Lot" series
After the 20th century, there were many works that broke the original concept of education. For example, "Alice in Wonderland", "Peter Pan", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "Pippi Longstocking", "Carlson the Little Flying Man" and so on.
The children's personality in these works has completely captured the hearts of children.
Liberate the vigorous vitality of children
In the stories of these "bad boys" of children's literature, what we should see is a vigorous vitality, which represents breaking through restrictions, representing liberation, and representing a kind of unbundling of the soul.
These stories gather countless psychology in the process of children's development, which are educated and suppressed by social rules. And these repressive parts have been propagated and released in the reading of literature.
Christina da Venier, "The Blue Room"
Reading these stories is a comfort to every child's soul, they may not be able to do the bad boys in the story, but they will definitely identify with these bad boys in reading, as if they really did these things.
These stories actually open up our very narrow horizons, inspire us to be able to take our children with us, embrace all the special references in us, and also inspire us to look at the growth of children and even ourselves with a broader and more eastern perspective.
[de] Gretel & H.A. Ray "Curious George" series
The Japanese psychologist Hayato Kawai, in his book Children and Evil, put forward the proposition that there are two sides to the evil of the human mind:
On the one hand, it represents destruction, and evil has destructive power. These destructive forces represent things that can hurt others, that can break the rules of society, and then the other side of evil is also creative. Creativity is very important for everyone's growth.
"Children always grow up doing bad things out of sight of us adults."
Become a person with mental resilience
In "Strange Jezoro Force", Zorro Force actually represents a kind of "evil creativity".
He always claimed to be mischievous and mischievous, and these huge senses of mission made him burst out of his creativity, designing a lot of organs and setting up a lot of whole-person scams.
[Japanese] Hiroshi Hara "Strange Jezoro No. Rinyuki Doesn't Want to Receive Gifts"
However, all the children who have read Zololi do not think that he is a big bad, because every time he makes a bad behavior end up in failure, sometimes even accidentally doing good things because of this.
In the process of reading, children can experience the creativity of evil on the one hand, as well as some parts of the repressed imagination that cannot be cathartic, and on the other hand, they can get a revelation of truth, goodness and beauty.
[Japanese] Hiroshi Hara "Strange Jezoro Force Zoro force was arrested"
A reporter once asked Hiroshi Hara, the author of "Strange Jezoro Force", why did he create such an image of a mischievous little fox? He said that since he was a child, he liked to play pranks and thought about pranks all day long, but he could not achieve much.
But why isn't Zoroli a bad person? He said it was because of his mother. Although his mother is not by his side in the book, his mother must be very gentle and make Zorro remember.
[Japanese] Hiroshi Hara "Strange Jezoro Force Crazy Racing"
The human mind is very complex, and so is the child's mind. Then, if we can tolerate these evil and bad parts in the hearts of children, then they will become people with mental resilience, so that they can embrace a better future!