Reading/Shenzhen Business Daily reporter Zhang Yan Guo Liming Correspondent Sun Xiaoxiao
On November 28, 2020 Dapeng Nature Children's Book, the country's first children's nature book award, was awarded ten awards in Dapeng New District, Shenzhen, among which "Animal Letters" by Chang Li and Wang Tianyu won the Chinese Original Award.
"Animal Letters" written by Chang Li and painted by Wang Tianyu won the Chinese Original Award
Unexpectedly, the two co-working and award-winning creators only met for the first time on November 28. How exactly did the two work together to create this masterpiece, and what will be published together next? The reader interviewed the two in the gap of the award ceremony.
"Faith" is a carrier with a sense of proportion
In today's world where instant messaging tools are so developed, "letter" seems to have become very distant. Ke Changli believes that "faith" is a carrier with a sense of proportion.
Chang Li has created many works of children's literature
Chang Li is a children's literature writer, Doctor of Literature of Fudan University, teaches at the School of Humanities of Zhejiang Normal University, master tutor of the Institute of Children's Culture, and is also the father of two children. He is the author of "Let's Tell Stories Better: A Study of Picture Book Narrative Discourse", "Singing in the Garden of Heaven - A Collection of Children's Literature", "Consumption Waves and Literary Undercurrents - Literary Studies in the New Century", "Creative Writing", "I Imagine" and other academic works, "Animal Letters", "The Legend of the Eight Immortals", "I Have a Dream", "How to Let the Elephant Get Off the Swing", "Whispers of the Virus", "The Little Reptile That Changes And Turns", "There Should Be Monsters in the Story" and other novels, "Who Invited Us to Dinner?" " and other scripts, "Once Upon a Time, There Was a Point", "A Long Time Later" and other fairy tale collections, translated into "Imagine a Day", "Leaf Limit", "Inner City Story", "Cicadas", "Song of Life" and other picture books.
He said that "Animal Letters" will choose letters as a carrier related to his undergraduate computer major, according to the principle of communication, although the way information is transmitted is changing, in fact, "letter" has not left us, but the form is changing.
In this book, not only does it believe that "both real and illusory", but the protagonist inside is also a "combination of virtual and real", in addition to the fairy tale writer, that is, Chang Li himself, there is also an illusory character, Dr. Doolittle who can understand all animal languages.
Through dr. Doolittle's "intermediary", Chang Li received letters from 64 animals, the animals who wrote the letters were different, the recipients were different, it seemed like 64 independent small stories, but in fact, they connected a crisscrossing web.
Read more than 100 books a year to lay the foundation
The first "letter" written by Chang Li was written by the Crow to Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was assassinated in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, and his death became the trigger for the First World War. "The crow is a very intelligent animal, intelligent enough to lure animal A to animal B, and after B kills A, the crow eats the rest of the carcass. This happens to be very similar to the occurrence of the First World War. Chang Li's ingenuity was affirmed by the editor and signed a contract with him.
Chang Li and Wang Tianyu cooperated seamlessly
But Chang Li was not in a hurry to do it, he spent a year, read more than 100 related books, fully precipitated and conceived before he began to write. In this set of "Animal Letters", there are "Letterheads from Extinct Animals", "Letterheads from Land Animals", "Letterheads from Underwater Animals", "Letterheads from Aerial Animals", each selected 16 animals, a total of 64 kinds of "letters", "It seems that there are only 64 species, but I have carefully selected from thousands of animals, each representative." "Chang Li paid great attention to the choice of diversity throughout the writing process, such as the 16 reasons for extinction of animals are different, some are extinct because of the indiscriminate killing of humans, some are extinct because of asteroids hitting the earth, and some are extinct because of internal friction...
There are connections between the different chapters, such as the large-winged whale in the underwater animal and the barnacles. Barnacles on large-winged whales write letters to barnacles on the reef, "persuading" them to travel in all directions together. The Bigwing Whale wrote to the chairman of his fan support committee, "I may not be able to sing the golden song this season, because I am trapped in a small annoyance - I have some barnacles on my body, which is not a big deal, like a small cough, torturing the singer." ”
And in the "letter" contains a variety of writing forms such as expository texts, essays, and even epitaphs, Chang Li said, hoping that children will be exposed to rich writing methods and truths through this set of books, just like the waist cover of this set of books writes: "There should not be only one voice in the world, and the wisdom of life is far more than the wisdom of human beings." ”
The next set of children's books will focus on information literacy
With Standing Text, editors began to look for suitable illustrators.
Wang Tianyu shows the first painting she created for the book, the Carolina parrot
The first painting of the new generation of art illustrator Wang Tianyu, the Carolina long-tailed parrot, let Chang Li "love one painting". The demise of this bird was one of the victims of the great extinction of birds in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, when humans frantically chased fashion, using bird feathers as decorations for women's hats and costumes, coupled with the hunting of farmers, and their habit of living in groups. Wang Tianyu's illustrator is a woman wearing a black top hat decorated with a Carolina parrot, and the woman's hair is woven into a cage of imprisoned birds, and there is also a lying parrot in the cage. In the distance, the silhouette of a hunter, a bird holding up a gun aimed at the sky...
"The first I look at it is what I want to feel." Chang Li said that it turns out that Wang Tianyu also read his works, and every illustration can be run into well at the draft stage. Wang Tianyu, who is also an animal lover, told reporters that when she was a child, she wrote a letter to the chickens at home, "At that time, I made a mailbox with a snack box and put the letter to the chicken into it." Now Wang Tianyu also has cats, lizards, rabbits, turtles and other animals, she laughed and called herself "smuggled goods", and drew the image of her own cat into the book.
Chang Li has come to Shenzhen many times, he likes the promotion of children's reading in Shenzhen, and believes that he is at the forefront of the country, so he can give birth to an excellent reading brand like Dapeng Nature Children's Book. "And the development level of children's drama in Shenzhen is also ranked at the top of the domestic position."
Wang Tianyu, who is visiting Shenzhen for the first time, is particularly fond of the pleasant climate and the rolling hills and mountains of the city.
Based on this good cooperation, Chang Li and Wang Tianyu are already planning to make a set of picture books on information literacy, through stories and pictures to let children embrace the information age calmly, and not be confused by illusions. "The main readers of the next set of books should be from preschool to the lower grades of primary school, so there will be fewer words and more information to draw."