[Repost] August 2014 List: Parents Must Read & Red Mud Top 10 Children’s Books of the Year Voting Opens

Orig­i­nal address:August 2014 List: Par­ents Must Read & Red Mud Top 10 Chil­dren’s Books of the Year Vot­ing Opensauthor:Hong­ni­ba Vil­lageRed Mud Vot­ing Web­site:http://www.hongniba.com.cn/fumubidu

August 2014

Hap­py Lit­tle Bear 10 Vol­umes (20140801)
Text by Shi­geo Watan­abe (Japan­ese); Illus­tra­tions by Yasuo Oto­mo (Japan­ese); Trans­la­tion by Dai Wei­jie
Hebei Edu­ca­tion Press 2013
Rec­om­mend­ed rea­sons:
These 10 small-for­mat pic­ture books, fea­tur­ing lit­tle bears, revolve around top­ics relat­ed to chil­dren’s dai­ly lives. The images are sim­ple and play­ful, and the text is con­cise and easy to read. The books are close­ly inte­grat­ed with chil­dren’s dai­ly expe­ri­ences, cov­er­ing every­thing from dress­ing them­selves, eat­ing, and play­ing in the mud, to greet­ing friends, com­pet­ing, going out with their father, play­ing, and bathing. The bears’ expres­sions and move­ments are remark­ably sim­i­lar to those of chil­dren, ful­ly con­vey­ing the emo­tions of the sto­ry and adding to chil­dren’s inter­est and enjoy­ment.

The author, Shi­geo Watan­abe, is a renowned Japan­ese chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture researcher, writer, and trans­la­tor. He is the author of the fairy tale “Song of the For­est” and the pic­ture books “Fire Truck Jeep” and “Alma’s Adven­ture.” The illus­tra­tor, Yasuo Oto­mo, is a renowned Japan­ese illus­tra­tor who began cre­at­ing pic­ture books inspired by his own chil­dren. His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works include “Rac­coon and Mouse” and the “Hap­py Lit­tle Bear” series, among oth­er well-known chil­dren’s pic­ture books.

Suit­able read­ing age: 2 to 6 years old

Mom (20140802)
Lin Liang­wen; Zhao Guo­zong­tu
Tomor­row Pub­lish­ing House 2013
Rec­om­mend­ed rea­sons:
“Pup­pies have moth­ers, kit­tens have moth­ers. Ani­mal moth­ers will keep their babies by their side, feed them, and take them out to play. I also have a moth­er, my moth­er likes me, and I like my moth­er. Look, this is my moth­er!” Short sen­tences, sim­ple pic­tures, but with strong love flow­ing in them, giv­ing babies the strength to grow up with peace of mind.

Author Lin Liang was award­ed the Spe­cial Con­tri­bu­tion Award at the 6th Xinyi Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture Awards. Illus­tra­tor Zhao Guo­zong, a pro­fes­sion­al in art, craft, and design edu­ca­tion and cre­ation, enjoys cre­at­ing pic­ture books for chil­dren and has won numer­ous chil­dren’s book illus­tra­tion awards and annu­al best book awards.

Suit­able read­ing age: 0–3 years old

Bones Broth­er (20140803)
(Japan­ese) Text and illus­tra­tions by Gomi Taro; trans­lat­ed by Peng Yi and Zhou Long­mei
New Star Pub­lish­ing House 2014
Rec­om­mend­ed rea­sons:
The skele­ton boy slept rest­less­ly. He felt like he’d for­got­ten some­thing, but he could­n’t place it. He’d for­got­ten to do his laun­dry? How could that be? He did­n’t even have any clothes! He’d for­got­ten to get a hair­cut? That was out of the ques­tion. Combs and scis­sors would slip if placed on his hair! He’d for­got­ten he was hun­gry? How could that be pos­si­ble? He did­n’t even have a stom­ach! So… what had he for­got­ten?

Taro Gomi was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1945. He began writ­ing at the age of 27 and has since pub­lished over 400 unique­ly cre­ative pic­ture books, includ­ing “The Calf’s Spring,” “Look, Naked,” and “Croc­o­dile Scared, Den­tist Scared.” He is Japan’s most renowned pic­ture book author inter­na­tion­al­ly, with dozens of his works trans­lat­ed into Eng­lish, French, Span­ish, Kore­an, Thai, and oth­er lan­guages. His work “The Calf’s Spring” won the Illus­tra­tion Award at the Bologna Inter­na­tion­al Chil­dren’s Book Fair in Italy.

Suit­able read­ing age: 3 years old and above

Lit­tle Helper (20140804)
Text by Chi­hi­ro Nak­a­gawa (Japan­ese); Illus­tra­tion by Jun­ji Koyose (Japan­ese); Trans­la­tion by Poplar
 Twen­ty-First Cen­tu­ry Pub­lish­ing House 2013
While the boy and his par­ents are out, the mag­i­cal lit­tle peo­ple arrive in their kitchen: a fork­lift, a crane, a bull­doz­er, a mix­er truck, and all sorts of oth­er con­struc­tion vehi­cles are work­ing in an order­ly fash­ion. What have the lit­tle peo­ple accom­plished? The var­i­ous con­struc­tion vehi­cles in the book, of vary­ing sizes and shapes, each per­form­ing their duties, cre­ate a live­ly scene.

The author, Chi­hi­ro Nak­a­gawa, has loved read­ing since child­hood. She is active in the Japan­ese chil­dren’s book indus­try as a trans­la­tor of Eng­lish and Amer­i­can chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, a pic­ture book writer, and an illus­tra­tor. She began writ­ing pic­ture books in 1995, and her self-writ­ten and illus­trat­ed works include “Lit­tle Octo­pus Nana” and “I Seem to Have a Tail!”. The illus­tra­tor, Jun­ji Furuyoshi, is engaged in book bind­ing design and illus­tra­tion. “Lit­tle Man Helper” won the Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture Review Mag­a­zine’s “The
The series won the Horn Book 2008 Best Book Award, and was also intro­duced to France, South Korea and oth­er places.
Suit­able read­ing age: 3 to 8 years old

Lit­tle Swal­low in Flow­ery Clothes (20140805)
Edit­ed by Guo Hua and Yao Yuan; Lyrics by Fu Lin, Bao Kan, et al.; Illus­tra­tions by Wu Jinglu, Niao Xiansen, et al.
Hebei Juve­nile and Chil­dren’s Pub­lish­ing House 2013
Rec­om­mend­ed rea­sons:
This is a singable pic­ture book fea­tur­ing 21 beloved nurs­ery rhymes. The edi­tors, tai­lored to the style of the songs, have spe­cial­ly com­mis­sioned artists spe­cial­iz­ing in their respec­tive styles to cre­ate illus­tra­tions for each, imbu­ing the songs with new mean­ing. The accom­pa­ny­ing illus­tra­tions cre­ate a cap­ti­vat­ing back­drop.

The book’s orig­i­nal inten­tion was to cre­ate a sto­ry about a child nes­tled in their moth­er’s arms, feel­ing her love and shar­ing her mem­o­ries through her songs. The authors, Fu Lin, are a nation­al first-class com­pos­er. Bao Kan is the lyri­cist of the famous chil­dren’s song “Drop the Hand­ker­chief.”

Suit­able read­ing age: 2 years old and above
　　
Six Peo­ple (20140806)
Illus­tra­tions by David McK­eeven; Trans­lat­ed by Zhi­ma Tuan­chang
Hebei Juve­nile and Chil­dren’s Pub­lish­ing House 2014
Rec­om­mend­ed rea­sons:
The sto­ry begins with six peo­ple who have been search­ing for a par­adise where they can set­tle down and live a peace­ful life. At first, they suc­cess­ful­ly found a place, but soon they began to wor­ry that unknown ene­mies would come to seize their wealth. This fear led them to build a tow­er and hire sol­diers.    

David McK­ee is a renowned British pic­ture book author. He excels at cre­at­ing humor­ous and engag­ing sto­ries and illus­tra­tions, allow­ing chil­dren to expe­ri­ence life in joy­ful sit­u­a­tions. He has suc­cess­ful­ly cre­at­ed many fas­ci­nat­ing char­ac­ters in his works, includ­ing his most famous series, “Plaid Ele­phant.”

Suit­able read­ing age: 4 years old and above