Friends who like Pu Pulan believe that they are no strangers to "The Morning Market in Lotus Town". In 2006, "The Morning Market of Lotus Town", known as "the beautiful beginning of Chinese picture books" (Cao Wenxuan), was published simultaneously in China and Japan, and won the "Excellent Children's Picture Book Award" of the first Feng Zikai Children's Picture Book Award.
After 16 years, "The Morning Market of Lotus Town" was selected for the international blockbuster award - IBBY (International Children's Book Alliance) 2022 Honor List.
As the most authoritative and influential children's reading promotion organization in the world, IBBY selects the "IBBY Honor List" every two years to recognize children's literature works that represent the top level of writing, illustration and translation in IBBY member countries.
Today, we have invited an authoritative expert who is exemplary in the theory and practice of children's reading- Professor Chen Hui, professor and doctoral supervisor of children's literature majoring in Beijing Normal University, and director of the Research Center for Chinese Picture Book Creation.
Let's take "The Morning Market in Lotus Town" as an example, and ask Professor Chen Hui to talk to you about some methods of parent-child reading!
01
In the process of telling children about picture books, the most impressive thing is "The Morning Market in Lotus Town"
We often underestimate the reading ability and reading response of some children.
We think that our adult understanding of a book is the most adequate, in-depth, and accurate, and then transmit and guide our own understanding to children, which is the norm for many families and kindergartens to promote children's reading.
But what surprises me the most is that in the process of reading, children often find details that adults ignore, or correct possible misunderstandings of adults, such cases happen all the time.
For some high-quality picture books, children's reading reactions are often beyond our imagination.
For example, our original picture book "Morning Market in Lotus Town".
"Morning Market in Lotus Town"
Zhou Xiang Text/Photo
It is recommended that children over 4 years old read together
This book is hailed as the most beautiful beginning of China's original picture book.
The book unfolds a picture of life in Jiangnan Water Town, with a particularly beautiful natural and cultural landscape.
It is poetic, the structure of prose poetry, and there are not too many exaggerated elements and tense plots, but the children's reading response is surprisingly very positive.
In each of these scenes, there is a child and his aunt. The aunt wears a headscarf, and the child is in front of and behind the aunt.
In the process of reading, the child will take the initiative to find the location of the child and the aunt.
There are also many more details, including:
There are some things sold in the market, cabbage, turnips, and chickens;
What plays are being performed on the stage, and the people who sing the opera are holding something;
What shops are on the side street, what are they selling, and what the people in the shops are doing;
What are the snacks on the breakfast stall?
What's particularly funny is that there is a scene where the aunt's headscarf is undone, and these children will notice.
These rich details, children have a strong interest to capture, to mobilize their own life experience to respond, and then put forward their own experience.
There are also people on the street who are making stoves, the uncle who crosses the bridge carries a bird cage in his hand, and the window is open and someone is drying a quilt, these children have responded positively, especially the children of the township and jiangnan water town, and their life experience echoes, and the response is more enthusiastic.
The sales of this work topped the list of original works, and the enlightenment to us is that the artistic expression of picture books has unlimited possibilities. Local elements are more closely linked to the child's life experience.
For children, reading picture books is to echo their own life experience. The reading of picture books will give children spiritual comfort and healing. Let them have the strength of courage to grow in the sun for their lives.
02
It is not necessary to let the child read alone and quietly
The special way of reading picture books that is different from other books is parent-child reading.