Liu Haiqi's children's novel "Wind and Thunder": War and Children

Editor's Note

In May 2021, Liu Haiqi's work "Wind and Thunder Peak" was published by Sichuan Children's Publishing House. This children's novel, which is based on the memories of the author's father and shows the anti-war life in Jiaodong, Shandong, has blown a fresh wind for domestic original children's literature, and has been welcomed by the majority of readers after its listing, and has received many social praises. Among them, Zhang Wei, Xu Dexia, and Hu Lina, three experts and scholars, respectively, made wonderful comments on "Wind and Thunder" from the aspects of the essence of children's literature, creative attitude, war writing and narrative art. We collect their review articles and Liu Haiqi's own creative self-descriptions, presenting them to a wide range of readers, hoping to contribute to the creation and research of children's literature on the theme of civil war.

The persistence and innovation of children's literature

Wen 丨 Zhang Wei

After reading "Wind and Thunder Peak", I read it very early and very carefully, and after reading it, I told Liu Haiqi that the work "Wind and Thunder Peak" has its own strengths compared with several works he has published, but personally, I prefer "Wind Thunder Top". At my age, I prefer "real" things, and this "real" feeling in "Wind and Thunder" is very strong. The stories it writes originate from Haiqi's family and hometown, and it has a sense of substitution, without a trace of fabrication. Haiqi completed the entire writing with a real narrative, recording and playing naturally and relaxedly with an atmospheric posture, breaking away from the limitations of a period and breaking through the shackles of rules and regulations.

For today's children's literature, I hope they don't read so much like "children's literature." I don't want them to pinch their noses and talk in a peculiar, fixed tone to tell a "ripe" story. That tone of "children's literature" may seem "professional" and "cute," but it certainly won't be the best. We see that each era will consciously or unconsciously form a "collective tone", which is a certain general tone, and there will be many sub-tones below, such as the tone of the official document and the tone of the news. But a good writer should try to get rid of this "collective tone" and get rid of the shackles of those "sub-tones". Only in this way can we have our own way of language and enter language art, which is a basic condition. Those who can do this are not great writers and cannot. What is valuable is that the more children's literature works in Haiqi come later, the more they do not have that "collective tone" and the atmosphere of the conventional "children's literature".

Haiqi's writing, the language is not superficially "mellow", not so "skillful", but it is vibrant and personal. I fully acknowledge that. This affirmation stems from my decades of personal experience in writing. Practice has taught me that literature is first and foremost literature and then it is literature of some kind. If the foundation is not there, the nature behind it will not be established. I don't like certain "children's literature" that sacrifices literary quality, pursues the market and caters to taste. Insisting on the pursuit of noble, elegant and profound literary qualities, so that children and adults can benefit, this is good children's literature. The best children's literature in history, such as Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Hans Christian Andersen' works, are difficult to find the smell of "children's literature" in the market today. It doesn't smell good. All the children's literature created by Haiqi is very good. Such success lies not only in the creative techniques he strives to improve, but also in his long-term life experience and moral persistence. This quality has reached a new height in the current "Wind and Thunder".

When I first read the work "Wind and Thunder", it didn't feel as "rounded" as Haiqi's previous works. But if you read it, you will feel that this is the progress of "Wind and Thunder" compared with previous creations, it tells the story in a more natural and original way, more simple and natural, thus broadening the writing of contemporary children's literature. In the writing of children's literature in China, it is very necessary for the author to sing with his own voice and for the author to present it with his own life experience. If the author has more distractions, the action will inevitably be deformed. And Haiqi, with the sincerity of his heart, wrote it all the way down and handed over a good answer sheet. In fact, in general, as an author, there are bound to be various considerations and scruples, but they are best not to affect the quality of literature. Children's literature should have its most essential things, such as poetry, innocence, simplicity and so on. These essences are well preserved in Haiqi's "Wind and Thunder".

Children need to read more about the truth of life, especially the lives of the previous generation. Those rough lives have been handled by a child's heart, which is both original and current, fresh and lovely. That period of life seems to be far away from us, but it is like being in front of us. The childhood interests they express are often the same as those of today's children. In other words, children's hearts are connected and life continues. If you don't understand the life of the past, you will not understand the life of today, and you will not move forward better. In this sense, the stories that Haiqi tells for children are both often remembered and popular.

Haiqi has long been engaged in the publication of children's literature, and in the process, he has learned a lot of things. He's a veteran, not a novice. In recent years, he has had a lot of impulses to write, so creative, so explosive, because there are too many things in his stomach and too strong tension. He had helped so many children's literature writers, had such a rich life reserve, and when he created it himself, a lot of accumulation came out. He can continue to write, and his creative period has just begun.

(The author is the vice chairman of the Chinese Writers Association and the winner of the Mao Dun Literature Award)

True Heart, True Heart, True Feelings

Wen 丨 Xu Dexia

Liu Haiqi has been publishing for decades, is the president of the national famous professional children's society, during the work to cultivate a number of authors, published a lot of influential long-selling books and best-selling books, but also popular many people, for the children's publishing industry has made considerable contributions. In recent years, he has turned around gorgeously and begun to create children's literature, and has published five or six children's novels such as "Summer with Pigeons", "Little Soldiers" and "Horses on the Street" at the rate of one or two times a year, each of which can attract everyone's attention, which cannot but be said to be a miracle. I have been in the field of children's literature for many years, and I have seen writers up and down, and it is rare for a successful and undiminished author like Haiqi to be.

I have been wondering, why did he publish one of them, is this his personal charm, or the charm of his works, or the charm of his own works? I have been an editor for many years, and I have always advocated that everyone is equal in front of the manuscript, and as an editor, I strive to recognize only the manuscript and not recognize people, and after reading almost every work he has published in recent years, I think that this popularity comes first from the charm of his works, and then from his personal charm.

So what is the charm of his works? I want to summarize it with three "true" words, the first is sincerity, the second is truth, and the third is true feelings.

Speaking of sincerity, first of all, Haiqi really likes children's literature creation. At the age of retirement, writing is not for rice sorghum, not for buying a house, raising children, and not suffering for a false name, he has reached the realm of seeing through fame and fortune and spoiling, and there is only one thing left: do what he likes to do, he is from the heart "I want to write". To make an inappropriate analogy, like a hen carrying an egg, holding it around, most of his life accumulation in his heart is drumming, those unforgettable people and things are stupid, ready to come out, and do everything possible to find a place to give birth to this "egg", so each of his works is felt and has to be written. In this sense, his creation is purer, his heart is more true, his feelings are more full, his pen is more powerful, it is the natural flow of life and emotion, which is a kind of heartfelt, the best state of creation, the most sincere.

Today, when we talk about writing things for children, sometimes we "put it up", full of rules and regulations, and take the writing thing very seriously, looking like a shelf and wanting to do a big job. Especially when encountering a publishing house's manuscript and specifying the subject matter, it is easier to take care of the upper and lower, the left and the right, it is difficult to sustain itself, the hands and feet cannot be opened, and the face that was originally quite vivid immediately became serious and dull. Imagine a gymnast, if he plays with all kinds of distractions, his movements will definitely be distorted. In this regard, Haiqi has self-confidence and confidence, he is like a dark horse in the field of children's literature, he can write as much as he wants, loyal to life, loyal to his heart, loyal to the reader, this is his true heart.

This kind of sincerity, reflected in the work, is the truth. His works have a strong, overwhelming breath of life, and we seem to be able to feel the throbbing of life from the works, and we can feel the subtlety of the light wind passing through the ears and the flowers blooming and sounding. His stories are bumpless, knotless, smooth as if flowing out of nature, and seem to have reached a certain realm of invisible elephants and loud sounds, which is rare in many children's literature works.

For example, in the work "Wind and Thunder", Haiqi wrote the story of Jiaodong Anti-Japanese Resistance based on the old father, and he entered from a point, a line, and a small incision, that is, to listen to the old father tell his own growth story. The work uses the tone of his father's recollection and has a strong documentary color, but it is not a memoir, it is still a novel. The cleverness of the work lies in the fact that the author himself also enters the story, showing how he listens to his father, how to record, and what state his 90-year-old father and mother are, one by one, and the sense of reality and scene of the work is very strong. While he himself is in it, he also naturally brings the reader into the situation of listening to his father talk about childhood, and the reader also feels empathy. Imagine if he did not use this way of overlapping time and space, but simply recorded the childhood story of his old father and the story of the War of Resistance after he became an adult, how boring it would be, and the strangeness and staleness of the next generation could not be erased no matter what.

Another point has to be said that his old father's memories of his childhood, of the life he has experienced over the past 90 years, are themselves a creation, an unconscious creation. Because in the process of speaking, he is not copying life, but salvaging memories, and everything that is salvaged must be the most impressive, precious, and unforgettable thing in life. By the time Haiqi himself sorted out the materials and created again, he was already conscious of the second creation, he sorted out and screened his father's story, to rough storage, sublimation and reconstruction, a very interesting daily life in the rural areas of Jiaodong, it was vividly presented. At that time, children's playing games, from "the old man looks at the melon" to "smashing the door god", all kinds of vivid details, without life experience can not be written. When writing about the war, he was faithful to the truth of the historical data, and at the same time paid attention to the truth of life, the fullness of the story and the vividness of the character image. His brushstrokes always focused on his father's dictations, firmly grasping his personal perspective. This is very important, so that the work avoids a lot of big and empty battles, and focuses on the most brilliant "points" and characters in the story. This is also very much in line with the characteristics of memory, time has passed, and even the cruel and fierce battles of that year will be transformed into a story after several years. For example, the section of Sun Tianxi's battlefield ambush, as well as Grandpa Xiang, Leftovers, and parents who returned to simplicity in their old age, always let people watch the wartime years at the same time, and be moved by real life. In addition, in the depiction of wartime life, the book also inserts many interesting folklore and stories, making the work full of the unique color temperature of Jiaodong folk culture.

Haiqi's works can always jump out of conceptual writing, not only real, but also full of true feelings. Haiqi is a master of storytelling, especially good at grasping the characteristics of characters and the essence of things, and can vividly draw a character image in three words, which is his skill. At the same time, his works are both sincere and humorous, fun and easy to read and warm. Whether it is his "Horse on the Street", "Little Soldiers and Heroes", or this "Wind and Thunder", it can always make people find true feelings and warmth in a smile. This true feeling, especially in this novel, is natural and true, such as spring wind and rain, moisturizing things silently. Because this work is derived from a true story, full of personal, family and true feelings for his hometown fathers and elders, his feelings of home and country are contained in deep stories and humorous narratives. For example, it is written in the book that his father and mother are full of warmth and humor, and his mother has obviously been brain atrophied and has no time to take care of herself, preferring to hang out with her father. As soon as she said it, she said, "It's okay, it's okay, there's me." In addition to the humor of the details of life, the affection of two old men from the war years jumped on the paper. Each of Haiqi's books can be well received after publication, adults and young readers can read and like to watch, and the style of combining humor and humor and true feelings in his works is inseparable, and there are many such vivid and funny details in "Wind and Thunder", while adhering to the position of truth and truth, it will definitely be liked by readers large and small.

In addition, Haiqi is a rich mine of life, he himself and in the explosive period of creation, the rat pulls the wooden shovel - the big head is behind, we are full of expectations for him.

(The author is a children's literature critic and the former editor-in-chief of Children's Literature Magazine)

Childhood writing and the free exploration of children's literature narrative

Wen 丨 Hu Lina

"Wind and Thunder" is Liu Haiqi's new work "dedicated to our dear father and mother", and it is also the fourth children's novel after "Summer with Pigeons", "Little Soldiers and Heroes", and "Horses on the Street". Since "Summer with Pigeons", Liu Haiqi has focused his creation on the childhood time more than 50 years ago, in the street called "Shanshuigou", writing the growth story of a group of street teenagers, meticulously and smoothly telling the summer experience of the boy Haizi, Ermi, Duck and other friends who raise pigeons, and telling the horses running on the "street" such as Liu Jiahao, He Jian and Da Liangzi. Accompanied by these frank and personality teenagers are equally brilliant adults, such as Guo Yidao, Xu Shu, and Zhao Lijian. They are full of the breath and texture characteristic of that materially poor era, living authentically and freely, either cunning or kind, or open-minded or difficult. Through this gully composed of children and adults, the writer constructs another regional landscape that is different from the rural narrative familiar to previous readers—the juvenile growth and normal life of urban neighborhoods. In this sense, Liu Haiqi's children's novels are unique. Of course, what underpins the stories of this group of urban teenagers is his unique narrative and language, which writers call "furry" language.

In "Wind and Thunder", the writer does not continue the story of "Shanshuigou", but focuses on the older era of childhood writing, from the childhood era that the writer personally experienced and understood back to the long war years, telling the story of his father. Such a kind of creation that faces the difficulty of narrative and its natural harmony treatment without carving can be regarded as a kind of "construction and exploration" of the childhood writing and narrative possibilities of children's literature to a certain extent, and the most prominent reading feeling of this work to readers lies in the comfortable state of childhood writing and literary narrative.

The writer once said, "I am very grateful for my childhood, we are like grass seeds, blown by the wind, rooted and grown up in all places, growing into our own form, giving our own voice to life, showing our posture." Based on this concept of childhood, Summer with Pigeons and Horses on the Street depict a natural and frank childhood voice and gesture. Different from the salvage and presentation of the writer's childhood memories, "Wind and Thunder" writes the story of the father's generation, and the father's narration is organically integrated with the narrator's experience, feelings and material evidence. The whole book is divided into two parts, "Wind Through the Countryside" and "Thundering Years", with the father's narration of his childhood experience throughout, and the "I" as the narrator freely shuttles through the father's childhood, "my" childhood and the current life state of the father and son in many identities of the listener, recorder and witness who are present or not present.

"I moved in after I retired and lived with them for easy care." The narrator presented at the beginning of the novel is a retired old man who takes care of his father and mother in his 90s, and the story revolves around the repeated conversations between the implicit author "I" and his father. The writer deliberately retains the sense of the scene and the characteristics of the conversation, and "father says", "I say" and "mother say" frequently flash in the text. Through the collation of "I" and the re-narration of the storyteller, the rich and complex characters, details and stories of "I" are connected with what "I" see and hear, and the seemingly scattered and disorderly characters, details and stories are connected, and supplemented, explained, and supplemented with the explanation of necessary information in corresponding places. "It was 1954, the Constitution was promulgated, and I was named Constitutional" "The remaining is a nickname, in the past the rural people had children, take a low life to support, just call him left" "The donkey still has a story, and then slowly said" "That was our childhood beloved snack" and other similar or explanatory or explanation or interpolation language, completed a dense writing attempt.

"There are two kinds of melons", "I know that there are three kinds", "my father is very familiar with the grinding noodles", "The pig is worried about the child's call all the way", in the father's narration, the main characters of the previous part, the father, the mother, the grandfather, the grandmother, as well as the grandmother of Jin Cai, Fu Shun Gong, The Remainder, Xiao Ju, etc. all appeared, each character or a long stream of thin water or dragonflies passing by, but they all have their own unique life trajectory and spiritual appearance. The writer shows a grand history and a strong atmosphere of life in the memories or dialogues of many people. "Apricots are divided into two kinds", "went to school", "New Year" These simple titles implicate interesting childhood pasts and diversified hometown customs, there are naughty behaviors of childhood friends stealing melons, there are explosive battles and the joy of eating all kinds of food, there are various anecdotes of mountain party, there are kind things about Grandma JinCai, there are exquisite New Year customs, there are little memories of my father's schooling... "Poplar trees are divided into two kinds", "see the melon is divided into two kinds" and "know three kinds", and the father's memories are intertwined with the lively joy and poverty of the past years. There is the exquisiteness and wisdom of people in the hard years, and the beauty of human nature and human feelings.

If children's literature is a difficult narrative, it communicates the author's adult life experience with the life experience of the implicit reader. The narrative difficulty of children's literature also stems from this, which poses a huge test for the narrative scheduling and transformation ability of writers. Writers should show the vast and rich social and historical life and the subtle secrets of human nature in a way that children can understand and do not separate. Liu Haiqi's control of the narrative follows the way of "life flow", telling the trivialities of life, and gossiping again and again. The book does not arrange the core events that run through the whole book, some are only the father's narration, and there are constant jumps and flashbacks in the storytelling of the story, and in many places, there are even interpolations jumped out by the writer. The confidence of this narrative is particularly evident in the next episode, "The Thunder years." The lower part focuses on the war years and is more difficult to narrate than the father's childhood in the upper part. At the end of the upper part, the writer skillfully arranges the transition of the structure, constantly strengthening people's cherishing of a stable life in the joyful atmosphere of the New Year and twisting songs, and then the pen turns sharply, and the words "Later the devils came" bring the reader from the daily narrative full of life and customs to the war years in the lower part.

The opening scene of the lower part is still the father's story, the father once again mentions the poplar tree, talks about the school's "official" incident, talks about watching movies, talks about what he saw and heard in his grandmother's house, and talks about the story of beating the devil. In the next relatively linear narrative, the writer deliberately weaves more thoughts about war and history. The story of Grandpa Xiang, who can watch yin and yang and feng shui, from "leftovers" to the growth story of Liu Desheng of the Eighth Route Army, not only continues the fun and fun of the folk customs in the previous part, but also adds the individual fate of a specific historical era. Fresh flashlights, electric lights and other details reflect the changes of the times, "the electric lamp connected to the wire and the lamp rope, all cut with a knife" brought back to the old man in the countryside, seemingly a joke story, but it is a true portrayal of the small individuals under the vicissitudes of the times and the turbulent situation of current events. At the same time as his father told the story, the writer added a large number of historical materials, including the examination of specific war times, the character information of the warlord Zhao Baoyuan, who was known as the "King of Jiaodong", and the "Mashishan Ten Warriors Memorial Hall", the Devil's Blood Washing Battlefield and other related historical materials, the integration of these historical materials is not rigid and jerky, which may benefit from the writer's usual narrative tone.

These intricately implanted contents add depth and thickness to the work, but the writer has a clear implicit reader who is always aware that this is writing for children. The constant appearance of "I" voices and "I" observations in the book, such as "I tell you this, let's remember together" and other words to remind the reader. This is a planning-minded narrator who tells and navigates the rhythm of the story with great skill and confidence. Such a calm and methodical narrative is extremely rare in children's literature. It is precisely because of such a free telling that the more complicated and complicated social life that has caused trouble to the narrative in the past or even been shelved has the possibility of entering the story. The narrator does not need to hide himself, but from time to time interrupts the flow of the narrative, explains the current state of the father and mother, and expresses the "I" view of them, which is a kind of commentary that perfects the shaping of the narrator "I". It is this way of telling that does not take the theme story as a single narrative purpose that gives this work a unique narrative charm and provides a new possibility for children's literature narrative.

As an excellent publisher who has been deeply involved in children's book publishing for 30 or 40 years, Liu Haiqi bluntly said that he has been thinking about an important issue. As early as the end of the last century, Liu Haiqi explored the new construction and exploration of the field of children's literature creation in the article entitled "Opening up a New Field of Children's Literature Creation". At that time, he planned and published the "Cheetah Series" with modern military themes, and invited adult literature writers such as Zhou Daxin, Yan Lianke, and Yu Bo to create children's military themes. He believes that "expanding children's literature, especially the theme of novel creation, expanding the social dimension reflected, presenting the widest possible range of life scenes to young and child readers, shaping a variety of images, and shaping colorful themes with the spirit of the times are important means to prosper children's literature, and it is also one of the most important responsibilities of children's publishing workers at present." Children's military themes and the far-reaching "Drifting Bottle" series of books on the introduction of children's literature outside the region are all positive attempts to expand this kind of expansion. In recent years, in children's novels, Liu Haiqi has truly implemented the new construction and exploration of children's literature creation in children's novels. Such a non-repetitive self, with a posture of constant thinking, and the possible exploration of children's literature from different dimensions, is a worthy tribute to the style of an excellent children's literature practitioner. This is also a more respectable spiritual outlook conveyed behind the childhood writing and narrative of "Wind and Thunder".

(The author is an associate researcher and master tutor of the College of Humanities of Zhejiang Normal University)

War with children

—— "Wind and Thunder" creative self-description

Wen 丨 Liu Haiqi

Since the beginning of 2020, the new crown pneumonia virus has been raging, and it is impossible to go out, so I take care of the elderly at home, and at the same time completed this novel "Wind and Thunder", which is written about the life of Jiaodong children during the War of Resistance. The material comes from the father. The idea of writing this novel has a long history, often listening to my father talk about things when he was a child, and also reading some children's novels about the War of Resistance Against Japan, I always felt that I could write something, but I could not make up my mind to write. My father is getting older day by day, more than 90 years old, he can't hear clearly, he and his old mother are gradually inseparable, and after I retire, I moved to live together to take care of them. The idea of writing a novel came up again, so I asked my old father to talk about it every day and record it on his mobile phone. Accumulated more than 30 hours of recording materials. The old father's memory is very good, and he remembers the things when he was a child very clearly, and he talks about them slowly one by one, like a number of family treasures. Asked about the children's group, he picked up a pen and wrote down the lyrics of the "Anti-Japanese Children's Group Song" word for word. We also learned this song when we were young, and it reminds me of the music teacher in the music classroom, who combed his short hair and wore a Lenin suit, sitting in front of us, playing the organ and teaching us to sing. We all sang loudly with our chests held high. Our generation is the closest to the generation that experienced the war, we are connected by blood with that generation, and many of our memories and traces of life overlap with each other and are inseparable. During the epidemic, I finished this novel and counted my wishes for many years.

The writing process is worth documenting.

This is to write about the countryside 80 years ago, to write about the life in the countryside of Jiaodong in that turbulent era, to write about the children in the war and the war in the eyes of the children, which is a completely new subject and a challenge for my writing. First of all, we must ensure the authenticity of the content, and accurately tell the reader, especially the child, a piece of history, a child's personal experience and memories after old age. The father's narrative basically guarantees the reliability of the details, but is this not accurate history? After all, it is a very personal thing, it is inevitable that it is not limited by age, range of activities and cognitive ability, there may be errors, if this error is so large that it misleads the reader, the work loses its meaning. I collected and consulted a large number of materials, and studied the development of the Jiaodong Anti-Japanese Base Area, its role and value in the War of Resistance Led by our Party, its major political and military historical events and figures, and its economic and cultural situation. The important details of the father's narrative and the chronology of the places and places of the events involved are repeatedly checked, and the important places are inspected on the ground, listening to the people who are familiar with the situation, and sorting out and clarifying the unclear places in the historical materials. For the customs mentioned in his father's story, those plants, crops, birds and other animals were also checked and checked one by one. By doing these lessons, you can make sure that the history and details presented in your writing are accurate.

This is another literary work, not a simple memoir, but to support the work with literary elements such as stories, characters, and details. To deal with the relationship between fiction and non-fiction, the two should be superficial and dependent on each other. Just like building a building, the foundation beams and bricks and tiles must be real materials, so that the building is strong. And the good story and character details are doors, windows and colored decorations, which attract people to stop and look closely and look through the window. Insufficient to see, he went into the room to find a secret adventure, and finally found that this is a beautiful building. Real material can still build a good story, the key is how the author tells it. The fictional part cannot be sacrificed at the expense of the truth, but must conform to the logic of the character and the direction of the event, serve the clues of the truth, and build a more full and credible truth. Therefore, for the choice of story, the choice of materials, the setting of characters and the shaping of personality, the connection of the internal relationship of the entire work, there must be careful thinking and thoughtful design.

Language is a key factor in the success of literary works, and language is not only form, but often the content itself. I put a lot of energy into the polishing of language, only when the language feels right, the story can stand, can the details shine, make the story and characters shine. How to make the language clear and clear, with the unique local atmosphere of Jiaodong, in line with the identity characteristics of the characters of that era, and the details reflect each other as branches and leaves, and can be accepted by children, I especially considered. I strive to standardize the written vernacular language, strive to see elegance in the customs, complement the elegance and customs, be dense and regular, and conform to the children's reading habits in terms of rhythm, and strive to make the whole work present a hairy touch.

I'm getting older and it's not the golden age of writing, but I still have to work hard and try to write better. I'm going to read more books and read the classics, which is a make-up lesson for myself. I envy today's young writers, who have a deep literary foundation, and many of them are from the class and have systematically studied. I didn't. In order to write this novel, I read some works related to the war. The red classics depicting the revolutionary war have been read since childhood, familiar to us, and deeply rooted in our memories, and we have read foreign classics such as "War and Peace", "The Quiet Don River", and "No War on the Western Front". I can't prove whether these foreign classics have directly helped me in this writing, but I know the height that literature can reach, how vast literature can reflect war and life, and how deep the excavation of human nature can be. At the same time, it also made me realize that the wars experienced and participated in by our fathers, and their lives at that time, were even more thrilling, shining with spiritual strength and the brilliance of human nature, and the tenacity of our nation was not inferior to that of any nation, and it was worth our exploration and performance.

I wrote a total of eight drafts of this novel, starting on January 16, 2020, the first draft was written on February 8, and the final draft was written on September 2. In the process of revision, the more I changed, the more I felt that the weight was heavy, and the more I felt that there was something to say, the old father continued to provide new materials, so it was natural to change it. In fact, writing is to constantly configure various parts into the work more precisely, so that the machine under the hand is more dignified and exquisite, and runs more powerfully.

There is a detail, after the manuscript was completed, I sent it to my old friend Zhang Jing for advice, he is an experienced old editor of children's books, and we have a friendship that lasts for more than 40 years. Zhang Jing gave me warm encouragement and pertinent advice after reading it. One day he called me and told me that it was a coincidence that he had found the author of the lyrics of the "Anti-Japanese Children's Group Song" and was the mother of his friend Gogol. So I spoke on the phone with Brother Gaugorie. Brother Gori's elderly mother, Yu Hengjia, joined the Eighth Route Army at the age of 12 and worked as a young actor in the dance team of the National Defense Theater Troupe of the Jiaodong Military Region. In 1941, when she was 14 years old, she wrote "Anti-Japanese Children's Group Song" based on the tune of "Flower Girl" learned by her comrades-in-arms when they were studying in Yantai. This song was revised with the help of comrades-in-arms, spread throughout the Jiaodong anti-Japanese base area, and then flowed to other liberated areas. After the founding of New China, this song entered the music class of primary schools. The elderly Yu Hengjia settled in Chengdu in his later years. I handed this manuscript to the Sichuan Children's Publishing House in Chengdu, and President Evergreen and my editor friends did their best for it. Zhang Jing was the president of this excellent publishing house. That's how our cause moves forward from generation to generation.

This is my fourth children's novel since I retired, and I will continue to write some. I write slowly, writing should have a sense of awe, only reverence, in order to strive for excellence, in order to chase higher goals. I know my state and age, and I want to go far, not go fast. I will try.

(The author is a children's literature writer and senior publisher)