[Book Recommendation] Everyone’s Avanti

Illus­tra­tions for “As Many Hairs as a Don­key’s Tail”

Afan­ti was my idol from my youth. I nev­er tire of hear­ing his jokes or read­ing his sto­ries. Reread­ing Afan­ti today brings a new appre­ci­a­tion: it’s a cul­tur­al trea­sure trove, brim­ming with pro­found insights into human nature and rich in life phi­los­o­phy. What’s par­tic­u­lar­ly remark­able is that read­ers of near­ly every age nev­er tire of read­ing Afan­ti, find­ing their own unique humor and wis­dom in it.

The Afan­ti read­ers I rec­om­mend below are all pub­lished by Xin­jiang Youth Pub­lish­ing House. They have pre­pared a vari­ety of read­ing mate­ri­als for read­ers of all ages. More impor­tant­ly, these are well-researched and inter­est­ing books, like a feast rich in eth­nic fla­vor.

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The Biog­ra­phy of Nass­er al-Din Affan­di

This bio­graph­i­cal nov­el by the for­mer Sovi­et writer Soloviev, based on the col­lec­tion, com­pi­la­tion, research, adap­ta­tion, cre­ation, and re-cre­ation of oral folk­lore cir­cu­lat­ed in Cen­tral and West Asia, depicts Afan­ti as a liv­ing, breath­ing knight-errant. The sto­ry is incred­i­bly engag­ing and rich in con­tent. How­ev­er, I think it’s more suit­able for adults, and chil­dren should be at least in junior high school. It’s incred­i­bly long, and it requires con­sid­er­able patience to read, but the rewards are cer­tain­ly sub­stan­tial. You can pre­view a chap­ter online:
[Book Excerpt] The World is Made for Good Peo­ple: Afan­ti’s Life and Child­hood

[Intro­duc­tion] Ranger Afan­ti was once a child (Argenti­na)

The Com­plete Sto­ry of Afan­ti (Gold and Sil­ver Vol­umes, 2 Vol­umes)

This col­lec­tion, com­prised of two vol­umes, one gold and one sil­ver, com­piles and orga­nizes over 1,300 Afan­ti sto­ries. While it’s called a “com­pre­hen­sive set,” it’s cer­tain­ly “large” but far from com­plete. Afan­ti sto­ries (and jokes) are count­less world­wide. How­ev­er, it’s con­sid­ered a “com­pre­hen­sive set” because, first­ly, it’s the most com­pre­hen­sive in Chi­na, and sec­ond­ly, its sources are reli­able. The Afan­ti sto­ries col­lect­ed are all from ver­i­fi­able Tur­kic sto­ry col­lec­tions, and they ful­ly con­sid­er the respectable reli­gious and cul­tur­al char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Afan­ti sto­ries. This is large­ly due to the years of col­lec­tion, com­pi­la­tion, research, and trans­la­tion by the com­pil­er, Uyghur writer and trans­la­tor Aike­bai Wulam. It’s arguably the most com­pre­hen­sive col­lec­tion of Afan­ti sto­ries cur­rent­ly avail­able in Chi­na. The juve­nile read­ing mate­ri­als I rec­om­mend below are also pri­mar­i­ly based on this col­lec­tion.

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Afan­ti Clas­sic Sto­ries Series 2 vol­umes

The ori­gins of this read­er are as men­tioned above. The most strik­ing fea­ture of this set is its lay­out. When I first encoun­tered it, I was quite sur­prised by the large for­mat and font size. It’s obvi­ous that it’s pri­mar­i­ly designed for ele­men­tary school stu­dents just get­ting start­ed with read­ing. While it lacks pinyin, the short sto­ries and engag­ing sto­ry selec­tions, along with the spa­cious lay­out and over­sized font size, make for a very pleas­ant read. After fin­ish­ing, I feel a sense of accom­plish­ment (giv­en that it’s also quite thick). Aside from being a bit extrav­a­gant, there are no oth­er draw­backs:)

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The Essen­tial Sto­ry of Afan­ti (Col­or Illus­trat­ed and Pho­net­ic Nota­tion Ver­sion)

Com­pared to the pre­vi­ous ver­sion, this edi­tion includes pinyin and col­or illus­tra­tions. It’s more suit­able for begin­ners who still rely on pinyin. Despite the addi­tion of col­or illus­tra­tions, the price is much low­er, mak­ing it a great val­ue.

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The clas­sic sto­ry of Afan­ti that pri­ma­ry school stu­dents love to read

This is a more afford­able and bet­ter-qual­i­ty ver­sion than the pre­vi­ous one. It does­n’t have pinyin, col­or illus­tra­tions, or a dif­fer­ent sto­ry selec­tion. It’s a selec­tion of Afan­ti sto­ries, priced at 10 yuan, which is quite low.

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Avan­ti’s Mot­tos and Sto­ries (Eng­lish-Chi­nese Bilin­gual Avan­ti Clas­sic Sto­ries Pic­ture Book Series)

As pic­ture books gained pop­u­lar­i­ty, I won­dered: Could there be a pic­ture book telling the sto­ry of Afan­ti? By chance, I stum­bled across this book, hid­ing in a lone­ly cor­ner… It was a high­ly cre­ative pic­ture book for its time. Mr. Wang Hong­bin, a mil­i­tary painter from Xin­jiang, employed three com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent tech­niques to depict three dif­fer­ent sto­ries about Afan­ti. It was tru­ly remark­able!

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Give You What­ev­er You Want (Afan­ti Clas­sic Sto­ry Pic­ture Book Series)

As Many Hairs as a Don­key’s Tail (Avan­ti Clas­sic Sto­ry Pic­ture Book Series)

At the strong invi­ta­tion of read­ers and edi­tors, Mr. Wang Hong­bin cre­at­ed two more pic­ture books of Afan­ti sto­ries. This time, he main­ly used the method of paint­ing on kraft paper, and the sto­ries he chose were also very clas­sic Afan­ti sto­ries.
“As Many Hairs as a Don­key’s Tail” is anoth­er ubiq­ui­tous tale of wis­dom, in which Afan­ti tri­umphs over an arro­gant for­eign min­is­ter in a court­room exchange. “Give You What You Want” is the sto­ry of a wise farmer who mocks a greedy and fool­ish land­lord through farm­ing. The orig­i­nal idea for “Above and Below,” which won the 1996 Calde­cott Medal, was inspired by this sto­ry. How­ev­er, when this sto­ry is reimag­ined as Afan­ti, and pre­sent­ed in a deeply nation­al and region­al style—that’s tru­ly authen­tic!

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Avan­ti Sto­ry COMIC Edi­tion Series 4 Vol­umes

This is the com­ic ver­sion of the Afan­ti sto­ry, a very enjoy­able read­ing mate­r­i­al for chil­dren of all ages, and new works are still being cre­at­ed.

Most chil­dren today are obsessed with comics, but the major­i­ty of the comics they encounter are over­ly com­mer­cial­ized, Japan­ese and Kore­an. Read­ing comics isn’t inher­ent­ly harm­ful and can help devel­op inde­pen­dent read­ing skills, broad­en your hori­zons, and relieve stress. The real prob­lem lies in whether they’re sole­ly focused on comics, and only on import­ed, poten­tial­ly unhealthy comics. Rather than hope­less­ly dis­cour­ag­ing chil­dren from read­ing comics, I think adults today should proac­tive­ly guide them. For exam­ple, care­ful­ly craft­ed orig­i­nal comics like “Afan­ti Sto­ry,” which are not only full of wis­dom and humor, but also rich in nation­al fla­vor, should be proac­tive­ly rec­om­mend­ed to chil­dren.

Illus­tra­tions for “Giv­ing You What You Want”