The classic children's literature series "The Adventures of Little Ignorance" by soviet writer Nikolai Nosov (1908-1976) was created in the 1950s and 1960s, consisting of three books: Little Ignorance Touring the Green City, Little Ignorance Touring the Sun City and Little Ignorance Swimming on the Moon, and is still popular with Russian children today. In 1983, the China Children's Publishing House introduced this set of books, called the "All Don't Know" trilogy ("TotalLy Unknown" Tour Greentown", ""Totally Unknown" Tour Sun City", ""All Unknown" Tour to the Moon"), and since then this set of books has been reprinted many times and has become the childhood memories of many Chinese readers.
The 1983 version and the 1990 version.
Nikolai Nosov graduated from film school in 1932 as a film director and also engaged in children's literature, he is good at using the language of life to depict the stories around children, deep meaning in the ordinary, has won many literary awards in the Soviet Union, and his most famous works are this set of "Little Ignorance" series. On the centenary of Nikolai Nosov's birth in 2008, Russia also issued a postcard with illustrations from the "Little Ignorance" series and stamps of Nikolai Nosov's profile.
The protagonists of all three books are a young boy named "Little Ignorant" who is constantly in trouble, and he is about ten years old, often wearing a light blue hat, canary yellow pants and an orange shirt, and a green tie, thanks to which his friends say he "dressed like a parrot." He has many typical boyish traits: he is hot-headed, does not like to work hard, and is sometimes cunning, lazy, and boastful, but witty and intelligent. Thanks to these "shortcomings", Little Ignorant and his friends went through a series of adventures.
But the focus of these three books is not the same. "Little Ignorant GreenTown" focuses on the healthy growth of children's physical and mental health, telling the story of little boys and little girls from hating each other to understanding each other, cooperating with each other, and then learning from each other's strengths. "Little Ignorant Tour of the Sun City" uses imagination to depict nikolai Nosov's ideal modern high-tech city, encouraging children to love labor and be brave enough to innovate. The theme of "Little Ignorant Moon" is much heavier, depicting an inner city of the moon surrounded by money and greed, and people cheating among themselves, and the author presents the dark corners of social reality to the reader. Although the themes are different, the three books encourage children to overcome shortcomings, think diligently, love labor, unite and cooperate, and have the courage to practice.
At the end of 2021, Yilin Publishing House republished the book and adopted the illustrations from the original edition. Here's a retelling of the 800-plus-page "Little Ignorance Adventures" trilogy and the healings it has received.
"The Adventures of Little Ignorance" series, by [Soviet] Nikolai Nosov, [Soviet] Henrich Falke, [Soviet] Alexei Laptif, translated by Xie Zhenxing/Li Youran, Translation Forest Publishing House, August 2021 edition.
Written by | Hou Kai
Little Ignorant Greentown:
Gain insight into the true psychology of mischievous boys
The protagonist "Little Ignorance" first appeared in "Little Ignorance Touring the Greentown".
"Hundred Flowers City" is a city full of flowers, and there are a group of "little ones" living here. The "little ones" are kind-hearted, but they all have our common shortcomings and bad habits. Most of the "little ones" are as their names suggest, such as the grumpy "little rush", the nagging "little nagging", the sweets -loving "little oil cakes", the careless "little carelessness", and our protagonist - the "little ignorance" who knows nothing.
The little boys and girls in Hundred Flowers City are very proud of their gender, almost do not interact with each other, and even some little boys will take the initiative to bully the little girl and pull the little girl's braids. Little ignorance is such a little boy who likes to bully little girls, and is therefore disliked by little girls. The author describes the appearance of little ignorance quite vividly, "Little ignorance wears a light blue hat, wears canary yellow pants and an orange shirt, and wears a green tie... Dress up like a parrot... As long as the little girls saw his orange shirt in the distance, they immediately scattered in fright", in a few strokes, a huge "macaw" appeared in front of my eyes, rushing to the little girls. Where does this image seem to have been seen? Ah, it turns out that the cover of this book is a comic image of little ignorance.
"Little Ignorance" on the cover of "Little Ignorant Touring Greentown".
The little boys of Hundred Flowers City travel in a hot air balloon, and due to the accident of the hot air balloon, they come to a city full of greenery , "GreenTown". Greentown is inhabited by little girls. When Little Ignorance woke up from his coma, he found that the person who took care of him at the bedside was a little girl from Greentown named "Mu Tianlan". Mu Tianlan did not know the "black history" of little ignorance bullying little girls, and after she was praised by little ignorance for her good name, she said happily, "I know that you are a cultured little boy at a glance." A smile opened on the little ignorant's face. He was very happy to be praised, because almost no one ever praised him, and many people rebuked him. There are no little boys nearby, and Little Ignorant is not worried that someone will make fun of him because of his dealings with little girls."
Reading this, my heart can't help but tremble a little, it turns out that the little ignorant does not deal with the little girl, and even bully the little girl, it is completely worried that other little boys will laugh at him! Little ignorance actually has a sensitive and soft heart, which reflects the real psychology of how many seemingly mischievous boys. At the same time, I was a little sad, "no one has ever boasted" little ignorance, his sensitive and soft heart has long been stung by the sound of "reprimand" around him, how eager this little boy is to get the recognition and encouragement of the people around him. Josh McDowell, an American family education expert, said, "The basic task of educating children is not to catch the children's mistakes and make them correct them, but to try to catch the things that the children do right." Mu Tianlan's encouragement to the little ignorance is precisely the reward for the "cultured" of the little ignorance at this moment, which makes the little ignorant realize that good upbringing can be respected and recognized by others, which becomes the beginning of the little ignorance's efforts to overcome shortcomings.
The little boys in The Hundred Flowers City were slightly injured because of the hot air balloon accident, the little girls in Greentown helped the injured little boys to heal, the little boys drew portraits for the little girls after they healed, the little boys and the little girls wrote poems together, picked fruits together, worked together, held dances together, and a series of interesting stories occurred, in the process, the little boys and the little girls gradually discovered each other's advantages and became good friends. Finally, the little boys of The Hundred Flowers City reluctantly bid farewell to the little girls of the Green City and returned to their own Hundred Flowers City.
Illustration of "Little Ignorant Touring the Green City".
Looking back at our upbringing, there was indeed a time when, probably in elementary school, boys and girls didn't play together. Boys feel that playing with girls often will be ridiculed by same-sex friends, and even deliberately bully little girls in order to show their "manhood" in front of same-sex friends; and girls obviously think that boys are very rough and should stay away from boys. This phenomenon was observed and summarized by Freud, the famous Austrian psychiatrist and founder of psychoanalytic theory, in his "theory of personality".
He called this stage of personality development the "incubation period", that is, the stage from the age of five or six to the pre-puberty period, which is probably the primary school stage. Freud believed that the desire of children in this period to explore the opposite sex was suppressed, and even if they had a good time with their friends of the opposite sex before, children at this stage would gradually become estranged from their previous opposite-sex partners and pay more attention to their interactions with same-sex partners. Children at this stage will focus more on learning knowledge and skills, learning and same-sex cooperation, and preparing for the upcoming stages of puberty.
"Little Ignorant Tour of Greentown" is just right, vividly reflects the psychological characteristics of children at this stage, the author uses humorous and wonderful adventure stories to guide the little boys and little girls at this stage to communicate with each other, understand each other, unite and cooperate, and help children develop good living habits and healthy personalities.
In addition, the author also put forward several very speculative topics in this fairy tale, such as "the portrait is important to look like or beautiful" and "the first consideration in the medical process is whether the treatment effect is to alleviate the patient's pain". If adults and children read this fairy tale together, then you can brainstorm with children and talk about these interesting topics.
Illustration of "Little Ignorant Touring the Green City".
"Little Ignorant Tour to Sun City":
As bizarre and thrilling as Verne's science fiction novels
In "Little Ignorance Travels to Sun City", Little Ignorance is fascinated by magic.
Little Ignorance did three good things in a row, and thus obtained an omnipotent wand from the magician, who told Little Ignorance that if he did three bad things in the future, the magic of the wand would disappear. The little ignorant and their friends who have a magic wand have come to the technologically developed "Sun City". When we think of the sun, we naturally think of bright, warm imagery. This is probably also the author's creative intention, the author named this high-tech modern city "Sun City" and portrayed it as a happy utopia.
In Sun City, Little Ignorant saw high-speed trains, ships, driverless cars and other means of transportation, saw automatic seeding combiners and artificial rainfall techniques that assisted agricultural labor, and played chess with robots. Although today's high-speed rail has spread all over China, driverless cars have also been piloted in Beijing, artificial rain has long been a very mature and commonly used technical means, chess king Ke Jie vs "alpha dog" has been the news of several years ago, but in the Soviet era fifty or sixty years ago, artificial rain technology was not long ago, driverless cars and chess robots are more science fantasy, the author's keen tracking of the scientific frontier and bold science fantasy have to be convincing.
It is conceivable that readers in the 1950s and 1960s would have been much more shocked to read this than today's readers. This situation is somewhat similar to when we read Jules Verne's science fiction novels, and although many of the fantasy technologies and devices in Verne's novels have become part of people's lives today, we are still deeply attracted by his bizarre, thrilling, and twisty stories.
Illustration of "Little Ignorant Tour of Sun City".
In "Little Ignorance Touring Sun City", the little ignorant who has just arrived in Sun City accidentally turned a sun city called "Little Book Page" into a donkey due to a quarrel. In order to calm the uneasiness of his conscience, Little Ignorant went to the zoo to look for the "little pages" that he had turned into a donkey, and as a result, he turned three real donkeys into small ones. These three became small donkeys, and sure enough, "donkey nature did not change", causing a lot of chaos, running into a lot of disasters, and stirring up the happy and peaceful Sun City.
When Little Ignorant is determined to solve this farce with his wand, he discovers that the wand's magic has been lost. It turned out that it was because Little Ignorance had done too many bad things with his wand. The little ignorant in the lost repentance, at this time the magician who gave the little ignorant wand reappeared. With the help of the magician, Sun City regained its former happiness and tranquility. Through this magical adventure, Little Ignorance also learned that a happy life cannot rely on a magic wand for nothing, but requires hard work. Little Ignorance decided to work hard with his friends to build his Hundred Flowers City into a modern happy city like Sun City.
At the end of this story, the Soviet writer bluntly expresses Engels's philosophical view that "labor creates man himself", "You know how much labor the inhabitants of Sun City have paid for all this... Nothing comes for nothing... If everyone works together, they can create many things", and only by working can we create a good life. This has a very socialist "Soviet" flavor.
For us, it is not difficult to understand and accept the author's concept, for child readers, if the young readers can subtly form a labor concept that prides themselves on hard work and is ashamed of good and bad work through this fairy tale, they will also benefit for life.
Illustration of "Little Ignorant Tour of Sun City".
Little Ignorant Moon Cruise:
It injects a strong realist color into fairy tales
Little Ignorant Moon Is the third in a trilogy. The theme of this story is much heavier and heavier than the first two.
It tells the story of the little ignorant who took a rocket to a city inside the moon, the "Graben City", which is a city inside the moon that is shrouded in money and greed, and people are deceitful among themselves. Just as the "Sun City" in the second fairy tale symbolizes a warm and happy utopia, the "Graben City" in this fairy tale "inside the moon" may hint at the dark abyss of hell.
The author's creation of this fairy tale is probably the period of the "space race" between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1969, American astronaut Armstrong took the lead in landing on the moon and took "a big step for mankind". I don't know if American astronauts had completed the first human moon landing when the author created this fairy tale, but that era must have been the era of "aviation fever" and "lunar exploration fever". With "space navigation" and "lunar exploration", two of the most fashionable topics of the time, this fairy tale must have been the best-selling children's book of its time. Based on scientific principles, with the help of fantasy, the author described in detail the various parts and functions of the "rocket" on which the little ignorant rode, described the sense of weightlessness, and described the space scenery on the way from the earth to the moon.
Illustration of Little Ignorant On the Moon.
The inner city of the moon where little ignorance came is a city manipulated by money, and everyone here revolves around money. There are rich men who profit from oppressing the labor of the poor, policemen and prison guards who extort money from prisoners, doctors who are mercenary, businessmen who speculate, guns are rampant and robbers are rampant, the poor here are worn-out, their bones are erect, and their hair is gray, and the rich men here are richly dressed, eating butter bread, and drinking jam tea, and the only criterion for judging people here is "money", and the "rich people here are judged by small things, not according to their ability, wisdom, and kindness. Integrity and other similar moral qualities are based on how much money they have." The inhabitants here are called "Little Slippery Heads", "Little Miserly", "Little Greedy", "Little Shou Cai", and from this series of names, we can also see the author's satire and criticism of the residents here.
The author describes the scene of the little ignorant moon landing interviewed by reporters with great sarcasm, and all the people and horses are ugly in order to use the news of "little ignorance to land on the moon" to make a fortune. Reading this scene, I saw the scene of Stephen Chow's comedy movie, and if Stephen Chow made into a movie, he would definitely be able to satirize greedy humanity to three points. One of the main characters in this fairy tale, the rich man "Little Shou Cai", is a true scrooge, as his name suggests, who "carefully examines the two pieces of soap for a while, and then begins to work hard to soap his hands and cheeks, but not with his own soap, but with the one placed next to him." He is really happy at this time, because then he can save a lot", this is Balzac's old Grande.
Illustration of Little Ignorant On the Moon.
Compared with the first two films, "Little Ignorant Moon" is very realistic. I don't know whether the author inherited the consistent depth of thought of Russian writers such as Lermontov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, etc., unconsciously brought the complex real world into the fairy tale, or deliberately, deliberately let the children understand early on that in addition to the fragrant flowers and trees of the "City of Hundred Flowers", "Green City" and the warm and happy "Sun City", there is also a dark and despicable "Graben City"; in human nature, in addition to honesty, integrity, friendliness, and hard work, there are selfishness, greed, Miserly, cunning, or a tit-for-tat satire of life in capitalist society during the "Cold War."
In this fairy tale, the author sometimes seems to incarnate as Balzac, dissecting the dark and bloody human nature for everyone to see with the sharp edge of his hand, and the author sometimes incarnates into Hugo, telling the reader bitterly, "The real valuable things are not money, but all these beautiful scenery around me." Fortunately, at the end of the work, the writer finally remembered that this is a fairy tale written for children, so there is a Dickens-like reunion ending, the inhabitants of the interior of the moon overthrow the rich man and live a new life, and the little ignorant and the little friends finally return to earth.
Illustration of Little Ignorant On the Moon.
No matter what age,
Innocent, kind human nature will not become obsolete
From a literary point of view, in the trilogy of "Little Ignorance Adventures", the most wonderful writing is "Little Ignorance On the Moon", which is not only higher in the depth of thought than the first two, but also the portrayal of the character image is more delicate and typical, both the description of individual characters such as Xiao Shoucai, as well as the portrayal of the poor, laborers, and rich people; however, it is this fairy tale that I dislike reading the most.
Personally, I like to read fairy tales, like to be able to temporarily break away from the annoying real world and immerse myself in the beautiful, righteous fairy tale world, and this fairy tale is a bloody dissection of the darkest side of the real world in front of the reader, so that I feel that there is nowhere to hide in the fairy tale world.
Of course, if the readers of this fairy tale are teenagers, perhaps this fairy tale can help them understand some of the darkness of society before they really enter society, and be mentally prepared to face it in advance, after all, light and shadow are always accompanied. However, I am not sure whether primary school students can read and understand this fairy tale, perhaps it is more appropriate for middle school students and even college students to read this fairy tale before entering society. Thinking about it, children may be interested in the storyline alone, not necessarily like adults to think and interpret too much, just follow the little ignorance to see these interesting characters, experience these exciting adventures, even so, this will be a refreshing reading experience.
Outside of work, I spent more than three weeks reading the 800-plus page "The Adventures of Little Ignorance" trilogy. Late at night, alone, flipping through fairy tales, it was a very happy personal time. This Soviet fairy tale still finds it vivid and humorous and fascinating to read today. Pure and kind human nature will not have the limitations of the times, it will not become obsolete; sensitive and soft hearts are also common to children no matter what era and no matter what race; just as the brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Pushkin, Niemtsova, Baum, Ren Rongrong, Zheng Yuanjie and other writers, although their countries, cultural backgrounds, and life experiences are different, their fairy tales have long become classics, accompanying generations of readers and giving readers unlimited happy times.
Once, whenever I read fairy tales, I often felt like an ostrich with its head buried in the sand, escaping from the real world into the fairy tale kingdom. In fact, it is not, and it may be more appropriate to say that I dragged the tired body in the real world into the fairy tale kingdom, enjoyed the spiritual feast of innocence, kindness and beauty, and returned to real life again with full spirits after drinking and eating in the fairy tale kingdom. Wonderful fairy tales cheer up my original intention, cheer for my dreams, and give me the motivation to love life and work hard. Whether it is the children who are under the pressure of schoolwork, or the adults who are tired of work, they may wish to open the "Adventures of Little Ignorance", and let's have a lively adventure with Little Ignorance.