[Repost] Ube Live Record: Nao Matsui’s favorite picture books — Japanese picture books

Haha, thank you so much for your care­ful record! Share it with oth­ers ^_^Orig­i­nal address:Ube Live Record­ing: Nao Mat­sui’s Favorite Pic­ture Books — Bei­jing Lec­ture by the Father of Japan­ese Pic­ture Booksauthor:U‑Bay Par­ent-Child Library   
   
Today (August 28th) from 9:45 to 11:15 a.m., a group of pic­ture book pro­fes­sion­als, pic­ture book enthu­si­asts, and sto­ry­telling moth­ers gath­ered at the Xicheng Dis­trict Chil­dren’s Library to lis­ten to a won­der­ful speech by 85-year-old Mr. Nao Mat­sui. Many of them came spe­cial­ly from oth­er places.
   
At the check-in area, I bumped into a gray-haired, ener­getic man in a well-tai­lored suit. I imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nized him as Mr. Nao Mat­sui. Ubisoft has been involved in par­ent-child read­ing for over two years, and today I final­ly got to meet him! It was his works, “Seeds of Hap­pi­ness” and “My The­o­ry of Pic­ture Books,” that guid­ed us to iden­ti­fy our niche, focus on pro­mot­ing par­ent-child read­ing, and strive to sow the seeds of hap­pi­ness through read­ing.
   
The fol­low­ing is the tran­script of Mr. Li’s live lec­ture today, which has been com­piled for peo­ple who are present and those who are not present to learn togeth­er.
 






   
   
I’ve been pub­lish­ing pic­ture books for 60 years. There are many impor­tant fac­tors that keep me going, includ­ing print­ers, platemak­ers, and pro­mot­ers. Their work is cru­cial, but most impor­tant­ly, read­ers. Pub­lish­ing is only com­plete when read­ers read our books, and espe­cial­ly when they are sat­is­fied with them. Pub­lish­ing is only com­plete when read­ers are tru­ly sat­is­fied. Over these 60 years, I’ve met so many won­der­ful read­ers, and I’m tru­ly grate­ful to them. I’ve trav­eled exten­sive­ly, from the most remote cor­ners of Hokkai­do to the small­est islands of Oki­nawa. Whether deep in the moun­tains or on tiny islands, wher­ev­er there’s a read­er, I’ll meet them. By meet­ing read­ers and see­ing their expres­sions, I can tell whether they’re sat­is­fied or not with our books, and through them, I can also learn what kind of books they need from us. Learn­ing this infor­ma­tion brings me great joy. It’s the sup­port of these enthu­si­as­tic read­ers that has made my 60-year pub­lish­ing career pos­si­ble. Thanks to these vis­its, Fukushikan’s books are dis­trib­uted through­out Japan. 800 of our books have been trans­lat­ed into lan­guages around the world.
   
This is a new book of mine pub­lished in the 21st Cen­tu­ry (“50 Pic­ture Books Nao­ki Mat­sui Favorites”). The one I’m hold­ing is in Chi­nese, and the oth­er is in Japan­ese. It’s titled “50 Pic­ture Book Rec­om­men­da­tions,” and I’ve includ­ed read­ers’ opin­ions and my own thoughts. Actu­al­ly, this book was­n’t writ­ten all at once. It was com­piled for a series of pub­li­ca­tions in a kinder­garten news­pa­per. I wrote an arti­cle every two months, and with each one I lis­tened to read­ers’ feed­back. It took me nine years, one arti­cle every two months. I thought these 50 books were the end of it, but read­ers respond­ed so well that I was asked to con­tin­ue, and there might be anoth­er 50. Read­ers who have read this book write to me, telling me about their favorite books and their thoughts. There are prob­a­bly many more excel­lent books out there, but I’ve select­ed the ones that read­ers love the most. Of course, this book is for adults, because if adults don’t tru­ly under­stand pic­ture books, they can’t con­vey them effec­tive­ly to chil­dren.
 
   
The most impor­tant point in my edi­to­r­i­al pol­i­cy is that pic­ture books are not books for chil­dren to read alone, but books for adults to read to chil­dren.
   
When chil­dren can’t read, adults should read to them. Even after they can read, adults should still read to them. This applies even to ele­men­tary and mid­dle school stu­dents. For all my years teach­ing at uni­ver­si­ties, I’ve always been delight­ed to read to col­lege stu­dents. They lis­tened atten­tive­ly, some lat­er becom­ing direc­tors of kinder­gartens and schools. When I vis­it their cities, they often come to me and express their grat­i­tude for read­ing to them about pic­ture books. They remem­ber the plots so vivid­ly. Read­ing to some­one ingrains a mem­o­ry, espe­cial­ly engag­ing books, which can be unfor­get­table. Espe­cial­ly when par­ents read to their chil­dren, they nev­er for­get them. Chil­dren nev­er for­get the voice of their sto­ry­teller!
   
This book (Guri and Gura) was pub­lished 30 years ago and is the most wide­ly read in Japan. I heard it’s been trans­lat­ed into Chi­nese. When I was teach­ing at uni­ver­si­ty, I asked my stu­dents, “Do you know this book?” Almost every­one said, “Yes!” But when I asked, “Do you know the author?” most stu­dents did­n’t. They knew the sto­ry, but not the author. There were a few who did, though per­haps only one or two in a class. Then I asked them, “Do you remem­ber who read this book to you?” Some said their moth­er, some their kinder­garten teacher, some their father, and some the staff at the library or fam­i­ly library. I was so hap­py to hear that they all remem­bered it clear­ly. A book leaves a last­ing impres­sion on chil­dren through the words and expres­sions of the per­son who reads to them, and this embod­ies the most impor­tant mean­ing of pic­ture books.
 
   
Anoth­er very impor­tant point in my edi­to­r­i­al pol­i­cy is: I do not pub­lish books that serve an edu­ca­tion­al pur­pose for chil­dren. In oth­er words, I do not make teach­ing mate­ri­als.
   
The books I make are not for edu­cat­ing chil­dren, but for mak­ing chil­dren hap­py from the heart so that they can grow up hap­pi­ly. The con­tent of the book is not for chil­dren to remem­ber in their heads, but to remem­ber in their hearts. Feel­ing hap­py in the heart is the mean­ing of read­ing. I do not agree with teach­ing chil­dren to read too ear­ly. The cus­tom in Japan is to start teach­ing lit­er­a­cy when they are in ele­men­tary school. It is very impor­tant for a child to hear how much lan­guage with his ears when he is young. I have 3 chil­dren, and I have nev­er taught them to read, but they already knew how to read before going to school. Because before going to school, they repeat­ed­ly asked us to read pic­ture books to them. It was not me who want­ed to read to them, but they asked me to read. Although I am a very busy father, as soon as I get home, the chil­dren are wait­ing for me with pic­ture books, and I have to read to them. Every time they take the same book, I think to myself, it’s this book again.But the chil­dren were delight­ed. By the time they were three or four, they mem­o­rized every­thing in a favorite book. Even if they could­n’t read, they remem­bered every word. They absorbed the lan­guage in the pic­ture books I read to them and spoke it back with­out a sin­gle mis­take. This did­n’t sur­prise me. I knew it was a child’s way of feel­ing about lan­guage. If par­ents forced their chil­dren to learn to read, the lan­guage would­n’t stick in their minds like this.
   Let me give you an exam­ple. This is an Amer­i­can book (“The Three Goats, Gulala”). The author is a tal­ent­ed sto­ry­teller, Mar­sha Brown. She adapt­ed a Nor­we­gian folk tale and pub­lished it in Eng­lish in the US. It’s a huge best­seller in Japan. A writer active in Japan once wrote in a news­pa­per that his first pic­ture book, “The Three Goats, Gulala,” was at the age of two. He said his moth­er read the sto­ry to him every night, and I thought his moth­er was tru­ly remark­able. At the age of three, when he could­n’t read, he would read the book alone. Even though he could­n’t read, he read to the end. His par­ents were amazed, so they record­ed him read­ing the sto­ry. When he grew up, he lis­tened to the record­ing and found that he had­n’t made a sin­gle mis­take. I was­n’t sur­prised by this, because chil­dren have this nat­ur­al gift for lan­guage. I read to my chil­dren this way, and they mem­o­rize the entire sto­ry just by lis­ten­ing. If I mis­pro­nounce a part, they’ll point it out imme­di­ate­ly. That’s why chil­dren are so ter­ri­fy­ing.If I make the slight­est mis­take, I have to start over from the begin­ning. If I force him to mem­o­rize the con­tents of this book, I’m doomed to fail. If par­ents read this book just to edu­cate their chil­dren, it gen­er­al­ly does­n’t work. Only when chil­dren are inter­est­ed will they absorb and express them­selves nat­u­ral­ly. From hear­ing to speak­ing, they’re already begin­ning to under­stand the expres­sive tech­niques of lan­guage. So I want you to think about this. It’s so won­der­ful when chil­dren can express them­selves nat­u­ral­ly with lan­guage!
   
Mar­sha Brown vis­it­ed Japan twice, the sec­ond time from Chi­na. She called me and said she want­ed to meet, so I went to meet her at a hotel. She asked me, “Why do Japan­ese chil­dren like this book?” “It’s a Nor­we­gian sto­ry, so why would Japan­ese chil­dren like it?” I asked her, “Why do you think that?” She said the book sold bet­ter in Japan than in the Unit­ed States, and that there are twice as many Amer­i­can chil­dren as in Japan, which is why she was so sur­prised. She joked that she depend­ed on Japan­ese read­ers for her liveli­hood. I did­n’t answer her ques­tions at the time, because I knew my chil­dren loved the book, too. After the author returned to the Unit­ed States, I kept think­ing about it and con­clud­ed that the Japan­ese trans­la­tion of the book is excel­lent. The Japan­ese trans­la­tor of this book is well versed in Japan­ese clas­sics. I have read his works and know that his lan­guage is excep­tion­al, so I asked him to trans­late it. There­fore, the lan­guage of the trans­la­tion is cru­cial to the suc­cess of a book. His trans­la­tion cap­tures the essence of tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese lan­guage, which makes it par­tic­u­lar­ly appeal­ing to Japan­ese chil­dren. When lis­ten­ing to pic­ture books, we must pay atten­tion to the lan­guage. Don’t read silent­ly; read aloud. The qual­i­ty of a book can be detect­ed by lis­ten­ing. Lan­guage can­not be heard, but when good lan­guage is heard, the world of the sto­ry will emerge before your eyes. There­fore, the lan­guage of pic­ture books is not a descrip­tion or an expla­na­tion.
   
(I’m old, so my voice is a lit­tle hoarse. The book I pub­lished is called Grum­ble, and my voice is grum­bling now.)
 
   
Anoth­er very impor­tant thing is pic­tures. Read­ing pic­tures, get­ting lan­guage from them, is not just look­ing at and appre­ci­at­ing pic­tures.Because all paint­ings are a kind of lan­guage, they just turn lan­guage into paint­ings. When adults look at paint­ings, they often only appre­ci­ate the pic­tures and don’t pay atten­tion to the lan­guage in them, but chil­dren can read every lan­guage in the paint­ings.
   
I know that paint­ing is lan­guage because I’ve been read­ing and absorb­ing lan­guage from paint­ings since I was two or three years old. My moth­er read pic­ture books to me almost every day when I was lit­tle. I was born in 1926, the fifth of six broth­ers. Do you know how it feels to be the fifth?
So some­times I felt incred­i­bly resent­ful. My par­ents dot­ed on my younger sib­lings, while I could­n’t com­pete with my old­er broth­ers. We six broth­ers were rough­ly three years apart in age. I felt my par­ents were very strate­gic, hav­ing each child three years old. Both of them were busy busi­ness own­ers, so they did­n’t have time to talk to me dur­ing the day. But at night, after I tucked myself into bed, my moth­er would start read­ing to me. By then, my old­er broth­er, who was three years old­er than me, was already in ele­men­tary school, and my younger broth­er, who was three years younger, was still a baby, so she would read to me alone. I had my moth­er all to myself, feel­ing incred­i­bly hap­py. But I knew why she read to me: she want­ed me to get to bed ear­ly, but I would­n’t.Because I was alone with my moth­er, I still remem­ber the joy I felt. I could tell her mood from her voice, her expres­sion, and the way her hands moved as she turned the pages. I could tell imme­di­ate­ly when she was­n’t ful­ly con­cen­trat­ing. At these times, she often went to bed ear­li­er than I did. I can still remem­ber the way she looked as she went to sleep: her voice grad­u­al­ly soft­ened, her eyes grad­u­al­ly closed, and her facial mus­cles grad­u­al­ly relaxed. But I still felt incred­i­bly hap­py. When you read to your chil­dren, you may also find your­self falling asleep ear­li­er than them. Read­ing enrich­es and human­izes rela­tion­ships. In the 1920s, when Japan did­n’t have par­tic­u­lar­ly good pic­ture books, she pri­mar­i­ly read to me from poet­ry col­lec­tions. I lis­tened to the excel­lent poems and looked at the illus­tra­tions. Back then, I absorbed every nuance of lan­guage in the pic­tures. Lan­guage, both present and absent in the text, was vis­i­ble in the pic­tures. The lan­guage I heard with my ears and the lan­guage I saw with my eyes became one in my heart. 
 
   
To judge the qual­i­ty of a pic­ture book, look care­ful­ly at the pic­tures and see how much lan­guage they can express.There’s a trick to appre­ci­at­ing a paint­ing: Don’t just focus on the col­ors; pay atten­tion to the lines, shapes, and com­po­si­tion. The lines are most impor­tant; how much sto­ry they con­vey. Chil­dren pri­mar­i­ly inter­pret sto­ries through the lines, and they’re more inter­est­ed than adults. The most chal­leng­ing aspect is the expres­sion of col­or; if it’s not used effec­tive­ly, it can ruin the sto­ry. Recent­ly, there have been numer­ous issues with the mis­use of col­or world­wide. Artists should­n’t judge read­ers by the qual­i­ty of their paint­ings, but rather by how their paint­ings con­vey a sto­ry.
   
This is a Mon­go­lian folk tale (Su He’s White Horse), which I once edit­ed (I often show myself to you now).This is the best book by Japan­ese artist Aka­bane Sue­kichi, the first Japan­ese artist to win the Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Pic­ture Book Award. He paint­ed in North­east Chi­na dur­ing the war. After return­ing to Japan, he found the Mon­go­lian land­scape most dif­fer­ent from Japan. He wrote in his book that the snow in Japan was very dif­fer­ent from the snow in Mon­go­lia. When I was in the mil­i­tary, I asked him, “What would you like to paint?” He said one thing: snow, and anoth­er: a 360-degree hori­zon. You can’t see such a hori­zon in Japan, and he want­ed to show it to Japan­ese chil­dren. So I found a Chi­nese folk tale about the horse-head fid­dle and asked him to paint it. The artist expressed it com­plete­ly in his own lan­guage. The same is true for trans­la­tion: first, you have to make the sto­ry your own, then express it in your own lan­guage. This book also won the high­est book award in Japan.
   
At a par­ty, I met the Mon­go­lian ambas­sador to Japan, who told me that this book is the most-read book about Mon­go­lia in Japan. He was very grate­ful. I was so hap­py to hear that. This book con­nects Japan­ese and Mon­go­lian chil­dren.
 
   
Regard­ing the issue of lines I just men­tioned, let me give anoth­er exam­ple. It’s a Russ­ian folk tale (“Pulling the Radish”), which I also edit­ed. It, along with “Su He’s White Horse,” is includ­ed in Japan­ese ele­men­tary school lan­guage text­books. I don’t speak Russ­ian, but the Japan­ese trans­la­tion of this sto­ry was so good that I want­ed to cre­ate a pic­ture book. An old man plants a radish, which grows ever larg­er. He tries to pull it out, but can’t. The old man, his grand­son, his grand­daugh­ter, the dog, the cat, and the mouse all come togeth­er to help, and they final­ly pull it out. This sto­ry is ridiculous—it’s a lie! But Japan­ese chil­dren love this book. The illus­tra­tions have been high­ly praised abroad. Why do chil­dren love such a ridicu­lous, almost lie-like sto­ry? This is the most fre­quent­ly read book in Japan­ese kinder­gartens. This sto­ry trans­forms some­thing that does­n’t exist into some­thing that exists. Some­times, some­thing that does­n’t exist can reflect the real world. One is the pow­er of lan­guage, the oth­er is the pow­er of paint­ing. The sound of pulling the radish is the sound made when exert­ing the most force in Japan­ese lan­guage. When chil­dren hear this sound, they all join in the effort. It’s such a joy to see every­one work­ing togeth­er. This is a tri­umph of lan­guage. Paint­ing and lan­guage seam­less­ly blend togeth­er. The artist who cre­at­ed this book is a renowned Japan­ese sculp­tor. I’ve been a huge fan of his work since I was a stu­dent. His sculp­tures cap­ture not only the appear­ance but also the expres­sion and mood. He once exhib­it­ed in Paris, becom­ing world-renowned. Dur­ing World War II, he spent three years as a pris­on­er of war. With­out paper or pen, he sketched what he saw in his mind, draw­ing from life. Only after return­ing to Japan could he bring his mem­o­ries to life. When I met this artist, I knew he had a deep under­stand­ing of Russ­ian life and nature, and I felt only he could cre­ate this book. He said he had nev­er illus­trat­ed a pic­ture book before and did­n’t know how to draw. So I urged him to show his pow­er­ful paint­ings to Japan­ese chil­dren. I want­ed to show chil­dren real things. So he decid­ed to give it a try. While he was paint­ing, he had a large mir­ror in his room, and he want­ed to see him­self pulling radish­es in the mir­ror. He did many sketch­es for this sto­ry. When he gave me the first draft, he called me and asked me to return it. He thought some of the draw­ings were not good enough, like they looked like they were being pushed. Even after revis­ing them, he was still not sat­is­fied. The cur­rent ver­sion is the third revi­sion. He feels that the third draft allows chil­dren to see the pow­er of draw­ing. While the image is sim­ple, it is pow­er­ful. It has received high praise in Europe and the Unit­ed States. When draw­ing, it is cru­cial to con­vey the truth to chil­dren!
 
   
Of course, not all pic­ture books are real­is­tic. I real­ly like pic­tures that seem to have no mean­ing on the sur­face. Some­times these pic­tures reflect the real truth.
   
The illus­tra­tions for this book (Guli and Gula) are quite child­ish. The artist was a sopho­more at the time, study­ing French lit­er­a­ture, not a pro­fes­sion­al painter. I saw her black-and-white sketch­es and was impressed by how her lines con­veyed a sto­ry and expressed a rich lan­guage, so I asked her to illus­trate the book. The sto­ry was writ­ten by her sis­ter, and after see­ing it, I felt that only a younger sis­ter could have cap­tured it. The book has been a best­seller in Japan for 50 years.
   
Both Japan and Chi­na have a tra­di­tion of using lines to depict sto­ries. As ear­ly as the 12th cen­tu­ry, Japan had a long scroll paint­ing. When I first brought this book to Europe in 1962, they repeat­ed­ly asked me how such paint­ings could be pro­duced in Japan. In 1963, I showed them Japan­ese long scroll paint­ings, and that’s when they were astound­ed. Asia has many tra­di­tions of artis­tic expres­sion. Japan­ese paint­ing was pri­mar­i­ly inher­it­ed from Chi­na. I love art, so I know that Chi­nese art is tru­ly remark­able. Pass­ing on tra­di­tion­al ele­ments to chil­dren is our respon­si­bil­i­ty as a pub­lish­er. Japan­ese ani­me is glob­al­ly pop­u­lar, espe­cial­ly those by Hayao Miyaza­ki and Suzu­ka. Their cre­ative inspi­ra­tion lies in tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese art, and they have tru­ly absorbed Japan­ese cul­ture.
   
Chi­na has a tru­ly excel­lent paint­ing tra­di­tion. I hope you won’t sim­ply imi­tate West­ern styles, but rather ful­ly uti­lize and devel­op these tra­di­tions, pass­ing them on to your chil­dren. In par­tic­u­lar, you should read to your chil­dren at home. While kinder­garten and ele­men­tary school are impor­tant, reading—and read­ing good books—is cru­cial at home. The sounds on tele­vi­sion aren’t human lan­guage; they’re machine lan­guage. A Swiss writer once wrote that this is a world of machine lan­guage, and only what peo­ple say to each oth­er is real lan­guage. Tele­vi­sion’s lan­guage and images are machine-gen­er­at­ed, and machine lan­guage can’t touch chil­dren’s hearts. Tele­vi­sion also reduces chil­dren’s read­ing abil­i­ty. I read to my chil­dren until sixth grade. Now, all three of them have their own books and can express them­selves in their own lan­guage, but I nev­er taught them these things, nor did I ever say, “Go read, go read!” They now take read­ing for grant­ed, just like eat­ing.
   
Time’s up, I’ll stop here! Thank you!

    
   
The applause last­ed a long time… We were all still lin­ger­ing. These were the heart­felt words of a wise, vet­er­an man who has been edit­ing and pub­lish­ing pic­ture books for over 60 years. “Read­ing to chil­dren sim­ply and nat­u­ral­ly brings them hap­pi­ness and joy”—this is the won­der­ful child­hood Mr. Wang expe­ri­enced as a son, and it is also the great­est gift he, as a father, can give to his own chil­dren and to count­less fam­i­lies!
   
I wish Mr. Wang good health and a smooth trip to Chi­na! I look for­ward to read­ing his oth­er 50 favorite pic­ture books!
 
                                                  
Ubiq­ui­tous Par­ent-Child Library Lin Ping
                                                    June 28, 2011
16:52    
 
   
Pic­ture books men­tioned by Mr. Nao Mat­sui in his lec­ture:
   
1. “Guli and Gula”: (Japan­ese) Nak­a­gawa Rieko / Buno­mu­ra Yuriko / Illus­tra­tion 
Nan­hai Pub­lish­ing House


 

   
2. “Three Goats, Gaga Gaga”: Mar­sha Brown (USA)/Illustrated, Twen­ty-First Cen­tu­ry Pub­lish­ing House

 

3. “Su He’s White Horse”: (Japan­ese) Aka­bane Suekichi/Illustrated 
Nan­hai Pub­lish­ing House
   

 
4. “Pulling the Radish”: (Japan­ese) Uchi­da Lisako / Text Sato Tadayoshi / Illus­tra­tions
 Nan­hai Pub­lish­ing House

   
Nao­ki Mat­sui’s read­ing guides:
   
1. Seeds of Hap­pi­ness    
 Tomor­row Pub­lish­ing House
 

    2. My The­o­ry of Pic­ture Books, Shang­hai People’s Fine Arts Pub­lish­ing House

 
3. “50 Pic­ture Books That Nao­ki Mat­sui Liked” by Twen­ty-First Cen­tu­ry Pub­lish­ing