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.
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Today's children, living in the era of technology where everything can be video, the way to obtain knowledge has become more diverse, and written reading needs to occupy a certain position in children's spare time, which requires more self-restraint. Therefore, the repeated advocacy and supervision of reading from teachers and parents, including the reading tasks of winter and summer vacations every year, have become the "clichés" in children's lives. However, the more eagerly we hope that our children will fall in love with reading, the easier it is to find the direction of reading, and thus ignore the true meaning of reading for children.
The following is from Huang Xiaodan, the author of "Tao Yuanming is also troubled", we once published an excerpt from this book (what if my child does not like to read the four masterpieces?). ), also interviewed her (is traditional culture deeply misunderstood by children's books? | Interview with Huang Xiaodan). She is a warm and cheerful teacher of ancient literature who has loved reading since childhood. In this article she writes about her own childhood reading story. When she stood at this moment and looked back at her childhood, she found that reading brought her not only the excitement of the story, but also a profound observation of the world. After those readings, her understanding of the world did not go beyond the books she had read in her childhood.
Written by | Huang Xiaodan
01
Those lonely reading times in childhood,
The sweetest candy of my life
When I was about seven years old, I suddenly got a set of incredible books called the World Fairy Tale Painting Library. It was 1989, and Dad was on a business trip to Beijing and didn't know Shanghai. He was a book lover who liked to visit Xinhua Bookstore and brought me back this set of books. When all my childhood toys were lost, only this set of books still fits well on my bookshelf. A few volumes were turned over too much, and the covers had fallen off and I had finely glued them with tape paper. To this day, I have so much to gain from reading, and this set of books is the first landscape that shook me on the journey.
World Fairy Tale Gallery, 1988 edition.
In this set of books, I saw Alice in Wonderland, Charlie's Chocolate Factory, The Adventures of Nils on a Goose, Pippi Longstocking, The Nutcracker, and dozens of other fairy tales. It will not be until almost 20 years later that these stories will be published in the form of a single book and become common children's books. So, among my contemporaries, I've never met a single person who read these stories as much as I did as a child.
Those lonely reading times as a child were the sweetest candy of my life. I have a strong experience with the rich wonders of this world, which came from this set of books in the first place. I still remember in The Adventures of Nils on a Goose, the little boy stepped on a rusty coin on the beach, kicked it away, and then saw a splendid city appear in front of him, and every merchant in the city took out dazzling goods to sell, and as long as someone bought a coin of goods, the city would always stand on the beach. Because the coin had been kicked away, the boy watched with tears as the city sank to the bottom of the sea again.
I remember in Education of Love, parents of wealthy families taking their children to a pair of poor mothers and children seen in the newspaper, helping them, and telling their children, "All kinds of people in the world, including prisoners, are going to read"; the teacher's shirt is hit by an ink bottle, and a boy raises his hand to admit that he did it. When the teacher learned that the perpetrator was helping the bullied classmates, he praised the boy for having a noble heart; the principal took the students out on a hike and saw the passing army across the river, and he asked the students to stop saluting and telling them, "These are all the people who defend us."
I also remember in Little John, a girl who turned into a moth and walked into a dance hall with Little John, and the brightly dressed people danced all night. The next day, Marulter took him to see a coffin and told him that "this is the most beautiful lady at last night's ball, and she has been dead for half a century now." The last sentence of this story is "Walk the hard road of life with me".
So far, my understanding of the world has not gone beyond these themes. The shock that fell on the mind of a seven- or eight-year-old constituted the quality of my personality.
02
Stories I didn't like when I was eight years old,
I still don't like it
The story of that castle convinces me that the world must be like a glorious bazaar, with countless things that I can explore with interest; that the story of that school makes fairness, justice, and nobility, truly experienced in an emotional way. Although I could not find its corresponding reality in my surroundings at that time, in the rest of my life, I will always find it again, experience it, and confirm it; and the theme of death is still being explored whether it is suitable for children. But I remember reading John Jr. when I was so young, death changed the world I looked out in a quiet, deep tone, and the world became more open, thick, and real to me. From that moment on, I didn't go through the phase of "re-understanding the world" that a lot of people feel in college or middle age. Since reading these stories, the world has been consistent for me.
"Home", by Ba Jin, People's Literature Publishing House, April 2018.
This set of books accompanied me throughout my elementary school years, until I began to read more realistic literature, such as "Home", "Spring", "Autumn", or "Wildfire Spring Wind Fighting Ancient City". Almost no one tried to interfere with my reading. Mom and Dad wouldn't be surprised that I was still watching Pinocchio one minute and changing to "Cowfly" the next minute. Only when the meal was ready, my mother would threaten me to put the book down and read it after eating. Dad would sometimes raid in the middle of the night, pushing open the door of my room to see if I was hiding in the quilt and reading goldbach conjecture with a flashlight. But until I would watch "The Course of Beauty", I would often open the "World Fairy Tale Gallery" and look at the stories of chickens, ducks, geese, princesses and princes again, and never felt any violation. My reading life is my spiritual life. I'm thankful that they bought enough books for me and left enough time to read, and didn't try to get into the process of building my spiritual life. This sense of distance makes books my walls and haven.
But there are also some stories in this set of books that I don't remember. Although I read my favorite stories a hundred times when fairy tales were scarce, and wanted to find new resources from the rest of the stories, there was no result. The stories I liked when I was eight are still liked, and the stories I didn't like when I was eight years old still don't like them. In this set of books, about one-third of the stories really achieve "a hundred looks and never tire", not a metaphor. And the remaining two-thirds are just "I remember I saw it". Later, I transferred this feeling to my attitude towards language textbooks. Whenever I get a new textbook, I take a quick look at it and pick out what I like, what I don't like, and what I don't. This distinction generally does not change because the teacher has given the lecture. I think this is the cultivation of aesthetic taste and aesthetic autonomy. The "discriminating mind" in reading is so natural, just like children standing in front of the ice cream counter, they will naturally choose, I want to eat this one, I don't want to eat that one.
03
"Pippi Longstocking" comforted me for years when I wasn't beautiful enough
My favorite stories in the World's Fairy Tale Gallery are Alice in Wonderland and Pippi Longstocking.
Alice in Wonderland is about a girl who falls down a rabbit hole. She fell with fragments of various pieces of furniture in a completely shattered world until it landed in a hall. There were small doors around the hall, and she had to make her body small enough to pass through those little doors, and she had to make her body large enough to reach the key on the table. Alice cried as she grew bigger and smaller, and finally walked through those doors and entered a more absurd world.
In this world, caterpillars sit on mushrooms and smoke, rabbits with pocket watches run around, and it is almost too late, and at the mad hatter's tea party, the sleeping mouse is stuffed head down into the teapot, and there is a sad vegetarian turtle, and I like to hear what it says the most. It was in the narrative of this vegetarian turtle that I first learned that there are two ancient kinds of learning in the world: Latin and Greek. The absurd plot and paradoxical dialogue in the book fascinated me. The Cheshire cat said, "We're all crazy here, and you're crazy too." Alice said, "How do you know I'm crazy". The Cheshire cat said, "Otherwise you wouldn't be here." Is it possible to deduce from the above dialogue who is not crazy? It wasn't until college, studying formal logic, that I suddenly felt the joy of a familiar language game, which was nothing more than the language of cheshire cats.
Pippi Longstocking, [Sweden] by Astrid Lindgren, translated by Li Zhiyi, China Children's publishing house, March 1999.
"Pippi Longstocking" is about the daughter of a pirate, who is thick-handed, happy and strong. When she came ashore, she carried her horse on her shoulder, and on her other shoulder carried a large chest of gold and silver treasure. I think Pippi can satisfy many of the ideals of a child. She had enough money and lived in a big enough house with no parental care. She was so powerful that two thieves came, but she caught them and punished them with a comb and a one-legged dance. She had a pair of good friends, a little gentleman and a little lady. The gentlemen and ladies' mothers not only allowed Pippi to travel, but also baked cakes for Pippi at home. When the siblings were going to school, Pippi grumbled, saying she was also going to learn the "punishment table" (multiplication table). Pippi also had a tree that was big enough, many tree holes, and the holes in the tree hid gifts for friends. And her pirate dad finally became the king of the tropics and came to take them out to sea.
I think Pippi Longstocking gives me the image of a girl who is not disciplined by stereotypes. Before I could grow into a lady, Pippi longstocking comforted me for years when I wasn't quiet enough and not beautiful enough. And when I grew into a lady, Pippi Longstocking became a mischievous elf in my heart, helping my soul not to be strangled under the appearance of a lady.
Now I can say that "Alice in Wonderland" is about a child's long childhood and adapt to the difficult journey of this dangerous world, while "Pippi Longstocking" is about a child's inner innocence, how rough and tenacious, sincere and dazzling, and finally make the world change because of her.
04
What is a real life?
The story of Mummy Valley answers everything
The other two stories I really liked were not included in the World Fairy Tales Gallery. One is Matilda and the other is the story of Tove Jansson's Mummy Valley.
Illustration of Matilda.
I read Matilda last year. Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is included in the World Fairy Tale Gallery. When I was a child, when I was peeling off a jewel, I suddenly remembered that the permanent lollipop and hairstyle toffee produced by the amazing manufacturer would also look forward to revealing a ticket to the chocolate factory when tearing open a large plate of chocolate tin foil. But if I had to choose it now, I'd rather choose Matilda for inclusion in this book. Because this is the story of a little girl who loves to read, it must also be my story.
Matilda has a violent father and a coldly violent mother, as well as a stodgy and fierce headmaster. However there are books. In her world of completely no fun, Matilda walked into the town's library and read all the books on the shelves from A to Z. At the age of five, "Great Prospects", "Pride and Prejudice", "Tess of the D'Urbervilles", "The Old Man and the Sea"... Why is it impossible? If I hadn't been nine years old to know that there was such a thing as a library in the world, maybe I could have tried it. In "Matilda," which I saw last year, there was an illustration of a little girl with a pointed nose, messy hair, feet bare to the ground, trapped in a sofa three times her size, with a huge book on her knees. Under the protection of the sofa and the bookcase, she held her cheek in one hand and almost penetrated into the world of the book. It's the happiest thing in the world, and I've always known it.
If, one day, I could only keep a children's book on my bookshelf, I would keep Tove Jansson's Mummy Valley story. What is a real life? I think The story of Mumi Valley answers everything.
A great comet is going to burn the world and where to hide; the little troubadour who arrives in the Valley of Mumi every spring will come, will it come one day; will all fathers have to go on a sea adventure like Ulysses; will all mothers have a wall full of roses that she has failed to plant in reality? But what I think most profoundly is Grote and Hatifacna. Hatifacna is the electrons that gather at sea, forever lonely, forever silent, forever appearing at night when navigators are almost lost, in groups toward the unreachable coast. Grote is a great shadow, he loves the lights of the world, but whenever he is attracted by a lamp, his footsteps will bring freezing, all fires will be extinguished, all plants will wither, leaving it in the cold of repetition.
"The Partners of Mumi Valley", by [Fin] Tove Jansson, translated by Ren Rongrong, People's Literature Publishing House, March 2018.
The story of Mumi Valley carries a tenderness and warmth that is rare in the world, and is easy to write as a Garden of Eden. But the brilliance and utter loneliness of the aurora is so essential precisely because it is placed under such a warm background that it is difficult to confuse with ordinary worldly suffering, and it is difficult to be expected to overcome. In "Winter in The Valley of Mummy", Mummy breaks the conventions of their race and does not complete hibernation. This became his achievement. "Now, I have everything, I've spent a whole year. I also spent the winter. I was the first Moo-mi to spend the full year. "I think I will do the same, spending my life in happiness and solitude as my achievement.
The profundity of children's books is almost similar to the deepest book I've ever read. It's just that it throws out problems, not necessarily problems, and it uses stories and intuitions to tell them instead of theoretical deductions. At many times in my life, when I go to some distant place in the world and want to move on, or when I feel the fresh troubles that come to me on a night like this, I feel that my essence is like a distant yesterday. I think that's because of the questions I've been searching for and answering all my life, the questions that lit up my heart in those first stories.