Intro­duc­tion: This is an inter­view pod­cast con­duct­ed on “Pic­ture Book Lol­lipop”, host­ed by Xiaox­i­ang and guest Ajia. Start­ing from the ref­er­ence book “Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books: Select­ed Read­ings and High­lights” pub­lished at the end of 2024, an in-depth con­ver­sa­tion was held around the selec­tion cri­te­ria, his­tor­i­cal con­text, cur­rent themes and future devel­op­ment of orig­i­nal pic­ture books. The record­ing time is on the evening of Jan­u­ary 3, 2025, and the broad­cast time is Jan­u­ary 17, 2025.

The fol­low­ing text is com­piled as an excerpt. To lis­ten to the full pod­cast, please click the fol­low­ing audio link:

Himalaya:38 Dia­logue with Teacher Ajia: Has the Spring of Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books Arrived?Pic­ture Book Lol­lipopFree online read­ing, lis­ten­ing and down­load­ing— Himalayas

Micro­cosm:http://t.cn/A6uDFbvy

Click to open »> Part I | Part 2 | Part 3

[Part 4]

…

All the sto­ries we tell are, in a sense, retellings of clas­sics.
It’s just that many of us haven’t read so many sto­ries, so we always feel that this sto­ry is new and that sto­ry is new to us.
But in my opin­ion, all sto­ries are actu­al­ly old sto­ries.

Xiaox­i­ang:

In addi­tion to the deep­en­ing of the sto­ry and the exten­sion of the mean­ing that you just men­tioned, I also par­tic­u­lar­ly hope to see more diver­si­ty and rich­ness in visu­al expres­sion.

In fact, in terms of folk tra­di­tions, ours are rich­er than those of South Korea and Japan in terms of mate­ri­als and appear­ance.

So when adapt­ing folk tra­di­tions, shouldn’t our orig­i­nal pic­ture books also present a rich­er look than those of our neigh­bor­ing coun­tries?

Ajia:

I think it also comes down to fate. After inter­view­ing many cre­ators, I feel that the cre­ative process real­ly depends on a sense of des­tiny.

(more…)

Intro­duc­tion: This is an inter­view pod­cast con­duct­ed on “Pic­ture Book Lol­lipop”, host­ed by Xiaox­i­ang and guest Ajia. Start­ing from the ref­er­ence book “Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books: Select­ed Read­ings and High­lights” pub­lished at the end of 2024, an in-depth con­ver­sa­tion was held around the selec­tion cri­te­ria, his­tor­i­cal con­text, cur­rent themes and future devel­op­ment of orig­i­nal pic­ture books. The record­ing time is on the evening of Jan­u­ary 3, 2025, and the broad­cast time is Jan­u­ary 17, 2025.

The fol­low­ing text is com­piled as an excerpt. To lis­ten to the full pod­cast, please click the fol­low­ing audio link:

Himalaya:38 Dia­logue with Teacher Ajia: Has the Spring of Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books Arrived?Pic­ture Book Lol­lipopFree online read­ing, lis­ten­ing and down­load­ing— Himalayas

Micro­cosm:http://t.cn/A6uDFbvy

Click to open »> Part I | Part 2

Part 3

…

Every­one thinks that this book (The Return of Radish) is a long-stand­ing folk tale, but in fact it is an orig­i­nal work by a Chi­nese writer in 1955, and it is adapt­ed from a sto­ry in the Bat­tle of Shang­gan­ling dur­ing The Kore­an War.

Xiaox­i­ang:

Yes, I also learned about this after read­ing your book. It’s real­ly amaz­ing!

I also remem­ber that at the Shang­hai Chil­dren’s Book Fair last year, I inter­viewed Mr. Ye Jun­liang from the French Hongfei Pub­lish­ing House. He men­tioned that they also pub­lished this book “The Return of Radish” in France, and the illus­tra­tor was the French girl Clemence Pol­let who drew the French ver­sion of “Mulan”. Her illus­tra­tions are very con­sis­tent with the con­tem­po­rary aes­thet­ic style. So I think this sto­ry is real­ly mag­i­cal. ​

Then I think we can talk about some fur­ther top­ics.

(more…)

Intro­duc­tion: This is an inter­view pod­cast con­duct­ed on “Pic­ture Book Lol­lipop”, host­ed by Xiaox­i­ang and guest Ajia. Start­ing from the ref­er­ence book “Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books: Select­ed Read­ings and High­lights” pub­lished at the end of 2024, an in-depth con­ver­sa­tion was held around the selec­tion cri­te­ria, his­tor­i­cal con­text, cur­rent themes and future devel­op­ment of orig­i­nal pic­ture books. The record­ing time is on the evening of Jan­u­ary 3, 2025, and the broad­cast time is Jan­u­ary 17, 2025.

The fol­low­ing text is com­piled as an excerpt. To lis­ten to the full pod­cast, please click the fol­low­ing audio link:

Himalaya:38 Dia­logue with Teacher Ajia: Has the Spring of Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books Arrived?Pic­ture Book Lol­lipopFree online read­ing, lis­ten­ing and down­load­ing – Himalayas

Micro­cosm:http://t.cn/A6uDFbvy

»> Click to open Part 1

[Part 2]

…

So I had a basic idea at that time: if we were to write the first book on the com­pi­la­tion of orig­i­nal pic­ture books, we must not miss those basic books.

This was my ini­tial start­ing point.

Xiaox­i­ang:

Was the process of draft­ing your list of 62 books quick? Or did you actu­al­ly think about it for a long time?

Among these 62 books, which one or which ones do you think are the most dif­fi­cult to choose? And which ones can you decide very quick­ly and feel that “this is a must-have”? Can you give some exam­ples?

Ajia:

We prob­a­bly start­ed this in 2021. The time­line I record­ed start­ed in April 2021. When I was sure I was going to do it, I actu­al­ly had a list in my mind because I had been prepar­ing for it over the years.

But I still have to con­vince every­one, I need a good rea­son. I cer­tain­ly don’t say that I have already decid­ed “these are the books”, but I have an idea why I chose these books. This idea can actu­al­ly be traced back to 2005 to 2006, when it was already in its infan­cy.

Why do I say so?

(more…)

Intro­duc­tion: This is an inter­view pod­cast con­duct­ed on “Pic­ture Book Lol­lipop”, host­ed by Xiaox­i­ang and guest Ajia. Start­ing from the ref­er­ence book “Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books: Select­ed Read­ings and High­lights” pub­lished at the end of 2024, an in-depth con­ver­sa­tion was held around the selec­tion cri­te­ria, his­tor­i­cal con­text, cur­rent themes and future devel­op­ment of orig­i­nal pic­ture books. The record­ing time is on the evening of Jan­u­ary 3, 2025, and the broad­cast time is Jan­u­ary 17, 2025.

The fol­low­ing text is com­piled as an excerpt. To lis­ten to the full pod­cast, please click the fol­low­ing audio link:

Himalaya:38 Dia­logue with Teacher Ajia: Has the Spring of Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books Arrived? _Picture Book Lollipop_Free Online Read­ing, Lis­ten­ing and Down­load­ing – Himalaya

Micro­cosm:http://t.cn/A6uDFbvy

[Part 1]

Xiaox­i­ang:

Hi, every­one, wel­come to the new episode of “Pic­ture Book Lol­lipop”. I am Xiaox­i­ang.

It’s been a long time since we last updat­ed the pod­cast, but the pod­cast is final­ly online. The last episode was dur­ing the sum­mer vaca­tion, and this one will be the last one dur­ing the Lunar New Year.

Because it is the end of the year, it is actu­al­ly quite suit­able to talk about some top­ics relat­ed to inven­to­ry and sum­ma­ry.

What we are going to talk about today is a top­ic that every­one is very inter­est­ed in — about our orig­i­nal pic­ture books.

Teacher Ajia has just pub­lished a the­o­ret­i­cal book on orig­i­nal pic­ture books, called “Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books: Select­ed Read­ings and High­lights”. In this book, Teacher Ajia ana­lyzes the devel­op­ment of orig­i­nal Chi­nese pic­ture books from mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives, such as cul­ture and art, and lists 62 rep­re­sen­ta­tive works from 1955 to 2020.

We have also rec­om­mend­ed this book on Lol­lipop’s Decem­ber new book list, and read­ers have respond­ed very enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly. So I think today is a par­tic­u­lar­ly good oppor­tu­ni­ty to talk about this book, as well as the many ques­tions and thoughts about orig­i­nal pic­ture books that can­not be exhaust­ed in the book.

(more…)