In recent years, many high-priced, well-packaged picture books have entered the market under the banner of winning international awards, and have become enlightenment books for many young children.
However, the reporter of Beijing Daily (ID: Beijing_Daily) recently found that some popular picture book stories frequently appear uncivilized terms such as "roll away" and "die", some children's picture books are "not suitable for children", and there are large plots describing love, and even picture books are accused of being eerie and terrifying, even adults are afraid to read it.
Many parents can't help but ask: Are these picture books for their children?
Among the best-selling award-winning picture books
Filled with uncivil language
"Get out!" When the 3-and-a-half-year-old child blurted out this sentence while playing with his peers, the child's mother, Ms. Zhou, was very surprised: "Where did you learn it?" After recalling with her family, Ms. Zhou reacted, this is a dialogue in a children's picture book at home, and the child especially likes that set of books.
This well-known best-selling picture book is called "A Different Carmela", imported from France and has won several French children's literature awards. The protagonist of the book is a maverick chick and its family of chicks. Ms. Zhou bought 12 hand-illustrated books for the first season, which sold well on e-commerce platforms, with many stores having more than 1 million customer reviews alone.
"After realizing the problem, I carefully flipped through the book and found that there were many places in this uncivilized language." Ms. Zhou gave an example that in the book "I'm Not a Coward," brave chickens shout at the weasels: "Dirty guys, get away before I beat you!" "You can't scare us, if you have the ability, you can come over!" Look I don't beat you into meat sauce! ”
In "I Love Little Black Cats", it's good to not take the story of appearances, but repeat "Get out, bum" many times, and even "Enough is enough!" We're going to finish him off." Ms. Zhou believes that this is very inappropriate for children who are in a sensitive period of language.
What worries Ms. Zhou even more is that her baby has just entered kindergarten and has to wet his pants twice a week, originally afraid that the child wants to pee and dare not say, but in the story "I want to have a star", when the alien chicken told the teacher that he wanted to go to the toilet and couldn't hold back, the teacher actually replied fiercely, "Can't wait?" "It's just you."
Ms. Zhou said that although children cannot read on their own, adults sometimes read picture books to children smoothly, and will forget to "shield" these uncivilized words, and these words and phrases because they are not often listened to, but can most arouse children's interest, listen to giggles, and imitate.
Hidden in flipbooks
Indecent picture
For the set of books "Different Carmela", the most unacceptable thing for Yoyo's father is volume 9 "I Like Her So Much". Several pages in the story describe the situation of two chicks falling in love, one of which tells the story of two chicks kissing affectionately under the watchful eyes of many chicks. "What is this orientation? I'm not a very traditional parent, but it's too early for younger children! Youyou's father said helplessly, I heard that in the kindergarten where the child is located, there are already children who call each other boyfriend and girlfriend, and some even say that they are married, "Children's feelings are pure, and adult thoughts should not be used to influence children." ”
The reporter found that the pictures in some picture books that are not suitable for children to watch are difficult to prevent. The mother of the 5-year-old girl Duo Duo recently bought a children's interactive encyclopedia three-dimensional flip book for her child, called "Ship 100 Pop-up Book".
When she turned to the page of the book's "Busy Dock" title, she saw a cruise ship with several interactive "windows" that could be opened, and opened them one by one.
Dining, drinking, haircuts and other scenes that may occur on the cruise ship are presented one by one, and when she flips to the fourth "window", the picture suddenly makes her dumbfounded - a man is lying on the bed with his eyes closed, completely naked, only covered with a blanket on his hips, and there is a woman standing next to him, giving a massage to a man. "It's a bit inappropriate, although the massage itself is nothing, but this picture design, the man is still naked, is really not suitable for such a young child."
Duoduo's mother said that fortunately she saw it in advance, otherwise when telling the child, if the child asked why this uncle did not wear clothes and other questions, she did not know how to answer, "In fact, we have been teaching the child very early on, so that she knows that everyone has their own privacy, and there is a difference between men and women, and you can't appear naked in front of others." She was glad that she saw this indecent picture in advance and avoided exposing her daughter to the bad design in this picture book.
The style of painting is terrifying and dark
Nowadays, the domestic picture book market is booming, cave books, hand puppet books, pop-up books, flip books... Not only are there a variety of genres, but also a variety of themes, and the painting style is also different. However, many parents reported to this newspaper that some picture books are strange and frightening, and their children are "scared" when they see them.
Not long ago, Ms. Ma, a citizen, bought a picture book version of "Chinese Nursery Rhymes" for her child, which selects 56 selected Chinese nursery rhymes, the content is close to nature and life, and has not only been nominated for international awards, but also recommended by many domestic reading promoters.
However, when she bought it home and actually read it with her children, Ms. Ma found that there were many gray-black mixing pictures in the book, and the 4-year-old child always covered his eyes. In the illustration of the nursery rhyme "Count the Legs", a huge green skeleton claw with long, pointed nails appears on it. In "Five Brothers", five inhuman "little devils" are also particularly scary.
"I bought it for the original Chinese painting style, but I really can't say that it looks good or has new ideas." "I can't see how profound it is, but I think it's weird." "The illustrations inside are not good at all, dark wind, not so beautiful at all." ...... On the pages of this book on the e-commerce platform, there are dozens of similar bad reviews.
The reporter noticed that in response to readers' bad reviews, the customer service of the official flagship store of CITIC Children's Book explained that the illustrations in the book "Chinese Nursery Rhymes" were made by children aged 8 to 15, and children used their imagination to create, and the images referred to the original Chinese ecology or prints, embroidery, New Year paintings, etc. of various nationalities... The book was published and released after strict control by quality inspection teachers. Because the Chinese folk nursery rhymes selected in this book are part of traditional Chinese culture, they are old and have a certain gap with the aesthetics of modern people.
Parents are not satisfied with this reply. "Children can create freely, but for the majority of young readers, shouldn't publishers consider using beautiful and healthy images to add color to nursery rhymes?" Shouldn't inheriting traditional culture be rough and refined? ”
visit
Most picture books do not recommend an age of reading
What confuses some parents is that most picture books do not clearly recommend the age of reading.
In the children's area on the third floor of the Beijing Book Building, you can see four or five long bookshelves with picture books, and the bookshelf signs say "picture books" or "picture book stories", but from beginning to end, it is rare to see picture books marked with the recommended reading age.
On the e-commerce platform, 3 to 6 years old seems to be a "big basket", and many children's picture books are packed into it. "A first-grade child or kindergarten child, compared with a kindergarten child, emotional intelligence, IQ and other aspects of development are very different, and the ability to understand and accept is naturally far from the same." Stone mother put forward her own confusion, she took the award-winning picture book "David, can't" as an example, her son didn't like to read it when he was 2 years old, he thought David's sharp teeth were very scary, and when he was 3 years old, he suddenly liked it very much, thinking that David who made trouble every day was very fun.
But at the same time, the son in the rebellious period began to step on stools and throw things around. "I don't know if I was influenced by David and began to make all kinds of trick-or-treating. I really don't know, how old is this book to look like? Stone Mama said.
Another netizen posted the picture book "Seven Brothers", which includes knife cutting, burning, cliff falling, flooding and other ways of killing, although the theme of the painting is to express the ultimate victory of justice over evil, 7 brothers with unique skills defeated the hateful king, but this netizen believes that four or five-year-old children have not yet had the ability to distinguish between stories and reality, "Will they think that fire and flooding really won't kill people?" Once imitated, the consequences are unimaginable. ”
point of view
"Adhere to the truth, goodness and beauty of picture books"
Regarding the frequent appearance of uncivilized words in picture books and the appearance of illustrations that are not suitable for children, Haifei, former vice chairman of the China Publishers Association and former chairman of the China Branch of the International Children's Book Alliance, pointed out, "This is definitely inappropriate, and we should check it when introducing and publishing." The little one is a blank slate and is very susceptible to books. Sometimes, the effects are lifelong. At the same time, he adds, excessive scrutiny should also be vigilant, stifling the space for innovation.
Haifei said frankly that there are still four major problems in the creation and publication of picture books in China: first, they rush to use picture books as a basket and put everything in it; The second is not to work the picture, always work hard outside the picture, such as producing a guide book or making a preface, plus the text far exceeds the text of the story itself; The third is excessive publicity, when there are many books, 28 people jointly recommend it; The fourth is the tendency of magazineization, one series at a time. He believes that the quality of picture books should be maintained, not "homogenized" and "vulgarized", write slower and draw more carefully, adhere to the purity and authenticity of picture books, and keep the truth, goodness and beauty.
Source: Beijing Daily (ID: Beijing_Daily) reporter Sun Hongyang Luo Qianwen The copyright belongs to the original author, if there is any infringement, please contact to delete.