In the original concept, the "Humanistic Reading Thought Map" was just an attempt to collect publishing suggestions - the industry needed to understand what shining works the academic community had found, and the academic community also hoped that the publishing industry would pay attention to the jade they found. So in the last month of 2021, Book Review Weekly gathered the strength of the entire editorial department to ask the following three questions to the humanities and creators who are in contact with us:
Questions you will continue to think about in 2021;
Which work you are following in 2021 that has not attracted sufficient attention or has not been introduced for publication;
What kind of original Chinese works do you expect to see?
In the end, we get far beyond the level of "recommendations". As the New Year approached, the editorial board withdrew a total of 74 responses, with a total word count of more than 50,000 words. The words with both emotional and speculative density weave a reading thought map that presents the connection between tradition and modernity, the future and the present, and their reading and inquiry in the dimension of their own lives or research record 2021, although meandering and turbulent, but still full of desire for sincere love and the need to reshape the connection between people.
This is the answer of Sun Lili, president of the Hundred Thousands Of Early Childhood Reading Research Institute, to the above three questions.
This article is from the B03 of the Beijing News Book Review Weekly's January 21, 2022 feature "Thought Map: 2021 Beijing News Humanistic Reading", and at the 2021 Beijing News Annual Reading Ceremony on January 15, we released the Humanistic Reading Thought Map on the spot. Today, we officially publish an overview of the survey of the Thought Map for the benefit of our readers.
Sun Lili is the president of the Hundred Thousand Children's Reading Research Institute
Questions to keep thinking about
In 2021, there are two main topics I will focus on, one is the embodiment of the changes in children's views in the process of China's modernization in the field of children's literature, which is my academic research direction. The concept of children is a broad topic related to the understanding of children in the whole society, as long as it is an adult, there will be a concept of children, but some people are soberly aware and can express their own view of children, while some people have not carried out systematic reflection.
However, the whole society's view of children will be reflected in all aspects of our lives, including the government's decisions on fertility, education, social security, laws and regulations, investment, etc., as well as cultural fields, such as film and television drama production, children's book publishing, advertising, costume design, etc., and of course, the field of education... As long as people's daily lives involve children, they must involve the concept of children. China has a traditional view of children, as well as a modern view of children, and the change of children's view is part of the change of people's overall concept, and it can even be said to be a very important part, because it involves the future of mankind. How we look at children and how we expect them means how we look forward to the world of the future.
Regarding the topic of "children's view", the direction of my research is relatively small, mainly focusing on the performance of the low-child children's view of the intellectual class represented by early childhood educators in the republican period in the field of children's literature, which has many characteristics of the times and cultural characteristics that are worth thinking about.
The second topic I focus on is related to picture books, mainly the question of how young children's understanding of literary works is accepted and understood by adults. In fact, this is also a sub-problem under the perspective of children. Many of our adults, due to the lack of cross-media reading experience, the literary nourishment obtained from childhood is not rich enough, and the overall literary reading and artistic aesthetics are in a relatively closed and utilitarian state, so they do not necessarily have the confidence to read a picture book, so they do not believe that their children can read picture books.
However, picture books are children's favorite reading materials and are also popular publications in children's publishing. Combined with my research, I have been popularizing the literary aesthetics in picture book reading to adults in the past two years, as well as children's views, educational views, child psychology and other topics, and I firmly believe that the focus of picture book reading is to "educate parents and liberate children", or "educate parents, entertain children". I emphasize that picture books are worth adults to think about aesthetics, philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy, and as children, they should put the entertainment and leisure function of reading in the first place. The acquisition of new knowledge is only an accessory product.
Books to watch
I hope that "The Secrets of Childhood" will be seen by more parents, teachers, reading promoters and publishers, authors, and all those who care about young children and picture books. Thinking about picture book reading focuses on satisfying and promoting children's development.
"The Secrets of Childhood Are Hidden in Picture Books", by Sun Lili, Edition: Inspiration Children's Bookstore Beijing United Publishing Company, September 2021
In addition, one of the books I recommend more is "Love, Money and Children", which should also be considered a bestseller. I like this kind of book that discusses education from different perspectives, this book is an American economist discussing parenting concepts and methods from the perspective of economics, taking full account of the socio-economic impact of different parenting concepts (or child concepts).
The books I have read in the past have discussed more about the impact of social and cultural aspects, such as "The Social History of the Child's View", "Pulling the Big Child", and "The Last Look back at the Vanishing Humanistic World", which also inspired me a lot, but "Love, Money and Children" discussed people's views on children and parenting concepts from the perspective of economics that I am not very familiar with, which made me refreshed and gained a lot.
Looking forward to the original work
I hope to see more serious works by Chinese scholars across fields. I have seen many Internet celebrity scholars, whether engaged in higher education, foreign language education, or scholars in the fields of law, economics, international relations, etc., who will express their views on parenting, family education, child psychology and so on. It is a good thing for everyone to discuss education, but after all, there are specialties in the art industry, and many of them do not have basic knowledge of child psychology and a comprehensive understanding of current Chinese education. I would prefer that they would proceed from their academic specializations and write a work like the one mentioned above, and make a reasoned and well-founded analysis of the problem of education.
The author | Lili Sun
Editors| Lu Wanting, Xiao Shuyan
Proofreading | Xue Jingning