Recently, a seminar on the children's novel "Silver Camel" was held at the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature in Beijing.
Group photo of the guests of the "Silver Camel" seminar
Haobo, a Han boy, and Lakshen, an old Mongolian herdsman, met in the Gobi Desert. This encounter awakened a dusty past of the military-civilian joint construction of the space base, and also revealed the secret of Lakshin taking the white camel Chagan to look for the "silver camel" on the Gobi Desert for many years. The novel "Silver Camel" uses two threads of reality and memory to intersect the narrative, focusing on a series of major historical events such as the completion of China's first space base and the successful launch of the first artificial satellite, as well as the past of Lakshen and the herdsmen's full support for the country's space industry.
Zhao Hua, author of "Silver Camel".
The author of the novel, Zhao Hua, is the vice chairman of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Writers Association, and has published many novels such as "Mars Mission" and "Desert Star Seeker", and "Silver Camel" was written by Zhao Hua over a period of five years.
"Silver Camel" book shadow
Hai Fei, former vice chairman of the Publishers Association of China and former director of the China Children's Books Working Committee, believes that "Silver Camel" has a strong northwest regional style, with three-dimensional and plump characters, and ingenious plot settings; Zang Yongqing, president of the People's Literature Publishing House, said that in the field of aerospace, there are not only scientific and technological progress, but also people's entrepreneurship, dedication, and sacrifice, and these plots will lead readers back to the difficult years when China's aerospace industry was just starting.
Xu Dexia, former editor-in-chief of the magazine "Children's Literature" and member of the Children's Literature Committee of the Chinese Writers Association, believes that "Silver Camel" starts from a grassland herdsman and shows the difficult process of the mainland's aerospace industry from scratch to becoming a world space power. From the opening of the space base, the relocation of the whole village of herdsmen to support the construction of the space base, to the participation of herdsmen in the search for the fallen satellite wreckage, it constitutes a history of aerospace entrepreneurship from a folk perspective.
Chen Hui, a professor at the School of Literature and Literature of Beijing Normal University and director of the Picture Book Creation Research Center, believes that from the unique perspective of what the young people in the pastoral area where the space base is located, the work expresses the touching deeds of the military and the people who have united and sacrificed for national defense and the country's scientific and technological undertakings for more than half a century. In particular, the adequacy of the landscape is particularly striking in recent works.
Chen Xiang, assistant editor-in-chief of China Reading News and deputy secretary-general of the China Children's Literature Research Association, commented on the theme of childhood narrative and family and country memory. She believes that "Silver Camel" starts from the real daily life of children and teenagers, takes childhood as the core, refers to the relationship between adults and children, the connection between the present and history, and integrates the real life narrative and the fiery historical narrative with a double-line narrative, successfully integrating the grand narrative about history and national memory. At the same time, Zhao Hua has a language style with obvious northwest regional colors, with a rich charm of singing and sighing, and this poetic lyrical way blends seamlessly with the narrative of the work. In the novel, many historical details buried by the wind and sand of history, the beliefs, struggles and sacrifices of the first generation of Chinese astronauts, will be resurrected and immortalized in literary and artistic works. In the retrospective view of the old herdsman Lakshen, the narrative lines of his childhood are intertwined and crisscrossed, exuding personal body temperature and life experience.
Bi Hai, deputy dean of the School of Literature of Minzu University of China, believes that "Silver Camel" combines the performance of regional ethnic cultural life with the theme of national aerospace construction, and achieves the unity of education, science, literature and children's nature, which not only expands the narrative space of Chinese children's literature, but also enhances the historical sense and cultural depth of children's literature in the new era.