The picture book "Gollum Cow" can be said to be a picture book version of the classic fable story "Fox False Tiger Wei" in the "Warring States Policy". Of course, such a statement is completely based on the position of time, in fact, it is difficult for us to judge whether Julia Donaldson of the United Kingdom has read "Fox False Tiger Wei" when writing manuscripts. What is certain is that after the unique graphic interpretation of the picture book, the story has become particularly vivid, very attractive, and has achieved an unforgettable effect.
Such an effect also determines that it will inevitably become a classic masterpiece in picture books.
It is also certain that no matter when, even on a sleepy night, as long as the story is told to a child, even if at the first page, only a silent forest of "nothing has happened" appears, it will soon ignite a spark of exploration and curiosity, because such silence must be trying to hide something. In that night's dream, will there be a Gollum cow?
Terrible fangs, terrible claws, terrible teeth, knees are particularly bulging, toes are very large, there are cancerous tumors on the nose, yellow eyes, black tongue, and barbs on the back...
Oh, that's not a nightmare. That kind of look is nothing more than a thick "harlequin". And the real dream elf is the little mouse that chirps, clever, witty and brave, and all the words used to praise children are occupied by it, how not to be liked.
So, use Gollum To tell a story to a child! Be sure to open the picture book to tell that pictures are indispensable, and storytellers will also get the enthusiastic support of children because of this story. Because children who listen to stories are always satisfied. Why? In my opinion, the story is great:
The protagonist of the story is a small mouse. It wanders around in the verdant forest we mentioned earlier. But it seems to be bad luck, encountering predators from time to time. However, this is the best arrangement of heaven, because every time it can be murdered, and it also gets great satisfaction in the escape of natural enemies.
For example, when a mouse encounters a fox, it effortlessly invents a gollum cow and tells the fox that it and the gollum cow meet next to the rock to roast the fox. In this way, the danger was easily overcome - the fox slipped away.
When encountering an owl, the little mouse also lets the imaginary Grunt cow and himself return to the team, and together have a terrible agreement - to fry the owl by the small river. The child who listened to the story must have spoken the answer— and the owl flew away in shock.
Both "slips" bring joy when winning. It's not just the little mice that win, but also the children who listen to the stories. Readers are substituted by the recurring simple plot, because such a plot design also confirms the logic of "abnormal harmony" in Chinese aesthetics (Shi Huihong's "Cold Fasting Night Talk" Volume V; Wu Qiao's "Wall Furnace Poetry" Volume I) seems so irrational, but it is extremely in line with the expectations of the heart.
Next, repeatedly entered the third round, and it must be the last time. When the little mouse encounters a snake that wants to eat itself, it still invites the terrifying grunt cow and reveals its plan to "stir-fry the snake meat by the lake". The snake was instantly terrified, twisted and fled.
See, this is really a great example of storytelling. The protagonist and one supporting actor after another have a dialogue, and the content of each dialogue is extremely similar, so that the dialogue content and the picture are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and the image of the protagonist's wit is also portrayed in a clear silhouette. The picture book presents each set of dialogues on a separate page, making the dialogue centralized and grand, constituting a kind of debauchery humor. Notice that humor also stems from inner contempt—every child listening to the story has decided in their hearts that this terrible grunt cow does not exist.
Yes, where in the world are there grunting cows with terrible fangs, terrible claws, terrible teeth, knees with special bulges, very large forks in the toes, and tumors on the nose, yellow eyes and black tongues, and barbs? The nonsense exaggeration brings a very relaxing pleasure to the child. Just when everyone gave up the instinctive vigilance they carried when they first entered the "forest", something that no one expected happened - the Gollum Cow appeared.
Have to praise such a plot design. All the casual narration constitutes a well-planned ambush, and the monster that the little mouse casually says is actually real. So, just when we are about to lose interest in such a simple and repetitive plot, the heart suddenly tenses up and the joy suddenly stops. Together we became panicked with the little mouse. In the picture book, the little mouse, because of fear, with a trembling voice, intermittently said: Oh... No...... No, help! How can there really be Gollum Cows?
The fox in "Fox Fake Tiger Wei", when encountering a tiger, behaves unusually calmly, as recorded in the Warring States Policy:
Fox: The son does not dare to eat me! The Emperor of Heaven made me grow a hundred beasts, and to eat me now is against the orders of the Emperor of Heaven. The Son thinks that I do not believe, I am the Son first, the Son follows me, and the beast sees me and dares not go away?
Of course, we believe that this is limited by the simplicity of the literary nature, and we can also guess that in that moment, the fox's heart should slide through infinite horror. But the fox in the Chinese story, like the little mouse in the picture book, can show wisdom in an instant. The little mouse said to the gollum, "Everyone in the forest is afraid of me." If you don't believe me, you go with me to see. ”
And voila, it's the same thing.
The weirdly sized Grunt Cow is like a tiger that meets a fox, a mixture of pride and stupidity, or what we prefer to accept as an almost childish innocence. The gollum cow in the picture book has wide eyes and a suspicious belly, followed by the little mouse, ready to go and see. Notice that it is this image, such a decision, that makes such a ferocious monster as the Gollum Cow conquer the heart of a child in an instant. Children are good, they can accept all the weak. What the Gollum Cow showed at this moment was a curious and soft heart under the tall and mighty shape. It is not so much to identify with the Gollum Cow, but rather to say that every child who listens to the story finds in the Gollum Cow the curious nature and ignorance of childhood.
The story will continue, and the plot will repeat itself.
Repeatedly, from the end of the previous section – the little mouse and the grunt cow encounter the snake with precision. It is conceivable that the snake believes in its own eyes, sees the little mouse coming with the gollum cow, and thinks of the agreement between the little mouse and the gollum cow before, and must hurry to escape. At this moment, the recurring plot once again ignited all the expectations of the child, and the fire of the starry plot was once again ignited. All the previous pictures and words, superimposed, constitute the hilarious pleasure of reading at this moment. The snake in the story determines from the heart that the Gollum cow was brought by the little mouse to eat himself. Therefore, that encounter will cause the psychological shadow of the snake's life. The defeat of a villain role like "Snake" also played a joyful melody again in the hearts of children with a sense of justice.
Notice that the little mouse, though cunning, becomes the embodiment of wisdom, a decent image, the embodiment of a child listening to the story in a picture book; the snake, the owl, the fox, and the decent characters, are ruthlessly classified as villains; the thick gollum cow is centered in the spice of the story and the connection point between the characters. If it must be assigned, it is a neutral faction with no head and no brain, non-toxic and pollution-free, and belongs to the role of "environmental protection".
Neutralism is not flat and featureless. The performance of the Gollum cow in the story is also absolutely wonderful. This is similar to Korean film and television works - every supporting role, even if it is a passerby, is very professional. It is rare to see a small soldier standing in a Korean drama yawning, the big aunt who buys vegetables forgets to shout, and the soldier in costume wears a watch... Instead, if you need to be shot and fall, each dragon set makes a heart-wrenching "thump" sound when it lands.
Maybe you have to refute this definition, because the name of the picture book is called "Gollum Cow", and it is the protagonist of the Eight Classics of Zheng'er. This is left to everyone to argue. From the naming point of view, it is still the fairness of "Fox False Tiger Wei", fox, tiger, appear at the same time, no matter how much they are. It seems that the symmetry, the idea of harmony in Chinese culture, is implanted in every detail of the text.
You see, the neutral Gollum was very engaged, and it began to be afraid, afraid of the little mouse that could shock the forest. The child listening to the story has already made a new prediction - next, the recurring ones must be the owls and little foxes who fled in a hurry. What is the loop design, needless to say, everyone can understand. This kind of acquisition is much more effective than memorizing the concepts in the theory of literary creation.
The ending is also joyful. The Gollum Cow, who couldn't figure out the situation, had raised his inner fear level to the peak when he saw everyone running away, and in his view, the little mouse in front of him was a monster with superpowers, small in shape, large in energy, and verified. So, when the little mouse said, "My stomach is very hungry and I want to taste the gollum beef", the super big monster gollum cow screamed wildly and fled like the wind.
I can expect that the child listening to the story will be laughing on all fours and rolling on the ground at this moment. If you really follow my advice, hold a picture book in your hand and show people with vivid pictures, it will definitely trigger the exaggerated physical reaction of children. At this time, the joy of the heart must be released. Otherwise, how can it be worthy of such a wonderful story?
What we pay more attention to is the plot design of the entire picture book. The previous absurdity and arbitrariness, the simple superposition of one after another, and the repeated similarities in the plot actually constitute the most effective "ambush", so that when the supporting characters of snakes, owls, and foxes appear repeatedly, they can produce a high degree of identification and response in the reader's heart. It's like a convention that as the reading progresses, the reader and the characters meet in the story, and each reader is satisfied in such encounters.
Satisfaction also comes from a hidden expectation.
Before the little mouse carried out a partial portrayal of the Gollum Cow, but in the picture book, the real and sensible Gollum Cow was presented in the follow-up! Each part is fulfilled, all the wholes fit, and such a design constitutes a kind of satisfaction. I have to say that at this point, the cooperation between the painter and the author of the picture book has achieved the "seamlessness" in the Chinese aesthetic. Dr. Li Yinyin of the Institute of Children's Literature of Taitung University in Taiwan has a wonderful comment on such a design in the article "The Humorous Taste of Perspective Art in Classic Picture Books": The characters in Axel's drawings are mostly round or soft lines, which changes the reader's uneasiness and fear when dealing with negative characters: when describing gollum cows, each part is partial and exaggerated, but combined together it is rarely thick and rounded... Partially enlarge the various parts of the gollum to project exaggerated horrors; Cover the fleeing animals with a shrunken wireframe and suppress the animal's fear of grunting cows.
The most satisfied is the little mouse, which finally enjoys the nuts alone, and that comfort also brings satisfaction to the children who listen to the story. Don't forget, in the process of intervening in the whole story, the person the child admires the most is this little mouse, and the child has long regarded himself as this little mouse. "Becoming a hero" is a child's natural long-cherished wish. The hero must have a happy ending, "the prince and the prince are happy together", these expectations in the bones are satisfied at the end of the story, which shows that the author of the picture book is childlike.
At this point, the ending of "Fox Fake Tiger Wei" seems very adult. Of course, this was originally a courtier's advice to the king, a vague exhortation above the court. From this point of view, "Gollum Cow" is more suitable for children.
Closing the picture book, I suddenly thought: There is a prediction unit in the third grade of the Language Unified Textbook, so why not choose the text of "Gollum Cow" as the teaching material? If so, how nice it would be! All predictions are based on evidence, and this is out-of-print classic textbook.
A good story must have a well-arranged plot, the plot is like a big framework, and it must be equipped with a finely polished detail during the period. Gollum Bull occupies both. For example, the emotional reactions of the characters in the story seem very real. Truth is sincerity, and sincerity can impress readers. We found that at first there was no fear in the encounter between the little mouse and every predator, because the clever little mouse could effortlessly defuse the crisis. At this time, the reader's emotional response is also a low-cost direct shallow laugh, such a plot at most brings a sense of ordinary level of entertainment. However, this is really the author's desire to indulge. The appearance of the Gollum Cow suddenly broke the calm and caused a huge surprise - no one thought that what the little mouse casually said was actually true! Even the rats themselves were surprised. The mood swings are particularly large, and if you look at it with a detection instrument, you can draw a cliff-like drop curve here.
When all the curves reach the trough, they are bound to rebound. The little mouse and the grunting cow encounter the "old friend" again and again, and the curve rises again and again. From the humor of the branches, to the surprise of the positive response, and then to the fears of each other, and finally converge in the victory of the individual. The reader's emotions accompanied the reading, a roller coaster ride. Each child experiences an adventure in the forest in the orbit of the plot, and this reading experience, in a way, trumps the pure pursuit of "roller coaster simple thrills".
Classic picture books, it is really worth pondering. We also particularly appreciate the technique of storyline advancement. Apologetically, I use "technique" because I believe that the author created it in a purely natural way, and solidifying it as a technique is really out of the need to learn. In the plot, the first is a simple flat push, fox, owl, snake, three times repeated, point to the end. When the reader is about to get bored, it is extremely reversed, dissolving the disappointment that is almost generated by the flat push, and curbing the fatigue generated by a layer of unchanged. The grunting cow that appears in the mutation creates a kind of dazedness - what to do? Will the little mouse be finished? Will the story end there? I didn't expect to loop back again, echoing the previous plot, so that all expectations were met.
The wisest hero in the forest, the little mouse, cannot die, the wise man cannot die, and the expectations of all children cannot be disappointed. This picture book gives comfort to all readers. A quiet forest also appears on the first and last pages of the picture book, which indicates that there is still a story to happen. We also believe that the authors and painters of Gollum Cow will also give us better works. Like "Fox Fake Tiger Wei", this picture book can also become a classic in the love of Chinese children.
#Children's Literature##Picture Book Stories ##文学启蒙 #
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