# Argentine Primera División Recommended Book #20160513–20160521

May 13
# Argen­tine Primera División Rec­om­mend­ed Books # Peter the Dream­er, Ian McE­wan
(Author), Sun Zhongxu (Trans­la­tor); Shang­hai Trans­la­tion Pub­lish­ing House, 2015.


   
A short book worth read­ing and savor­ing slow­ly. Peter is a 10-year-old boy who dreams all day long. The open­ing sto­ry, “Peter the Man,” is quite amus­ing. The sev­en sub­se­quent sto­ries depict Peter in either dream or non-dream states (who can real­ly tell?), seemed sil­ly at first, but the sec­ond sto­ry, “The Cat,” was a thrilling rev­e­la­tion, a pro­found insight into life. The fourth sto­ry, “The Over­lord,” had me even more lost in thought, as if I were glimps­ing a vast and pro­found pat­tern… Over­all, though, intu­itive­ly, these are just some fun child­hood sto­ries. But why, after read­ing them, do I feel a sense of melan­choly?

   
As McE­wan said, this book is prob­a­bly told to adults under the ban­ner of chil­dren, using lan­guage and sto­ries that chil­dren can under­stand. It talks about what the author wants to say. Sim­ply put, it is noth­ing more than life and love.

   
I only real­ized halfway through that the illus­tra­tions in this book were drawn by Antho­ny Brown! Mr. Sun Zhongx­u’s trans­la­tion deserves a huge thumbs up.

   
Suit­able for read­ing ages: Lit­er­ate chil­dren and adults; also suit­able for read­ing aloud to chil­dren.




May 17

# Argen­tine Primera División Rec­om­mend­ed Books # “Spell­bound” by Emi­ly Gravett
/Text and pho­tos by Sun Huiyang/Translated by Twen­ty-First Cen­tu­ry Press, 2016.


   
Read­ers who enjoyed books like “Big Bad Wolf,” “Lit­tle Mouse’s Big Book of Fears,” “Mon­goose’s Let­ter,” and “Rab­bit’s 12 Big Trou­ble­some Things” will def­i­nite­ly be inter­est­ed in this book. Who knows what oth­er tricks Emi­ly can pull off? While this book isn’t exact­ly mind-blow­ing, it cer­tain­ly chal­lenges the read­er. At first, I thought it might be a print­ing mis­take! It was­n’t until I flipped through it for the third time that I final­ly under­stood that the spells the frog had been prac­tic­ing were actu­al­ly two-part, mean­ing there are actu­al­ly 36 pos­si­ble com­bi­na­tions for the six spell pairs! — If you only prac­ticed six spells after read­ing this book, you’d be miss­ing out.

    The sto­ry is sim­ple: a frog painstak­ing­ly stud­ies a mag­ic spell and final­ly trans­forms him­self into a prince, earn­ing the princess’s longed-for kiss. And then… I won’t spoil the sto­ry. Such a sim­ple idea can lead to such a delight­ful pic­ture book, pri­mar­i­ly because it adheres to the prin­ci­ples of play in a good chil­dren’s book. “Games + humor” is the mag­ic for­mu­la for a good chil­dren’s book.

    The book’s cre­ativ­i­ty lies in the fact that it can’t be told using Pow­er­Point or any oth­er elec­tron­ic gad­gets; it must be told through a tac­tile book with pages that can be flipped back and forth. It proves that paper pic­ture books should last for­ev­er.

    Rec­om­mend­ed read­ing age: 4 years old and above, suit­able for shared read­ing




May 20

# Argen­tine Primera División Rec­om­mend­ed Books #The Boy and the Cher­ry Tree, Mark Som­er­set (New Zealand)
Text and illus­tra­tions by Ron Som­er­set, trans­lat­ed by Ajia, Xin­lei Pub­lish­ing House, 2016


   
This is a para­ble about dreams and per­se­ver­ance. If you have a dream (no mat­ter how big or small), what would you do? A ratio­nal plan usu­al­ly goes some­thing like this: To achieve Dream A, you need to first ful­fill Con­di­tion B; to achieve B, you need to first sat­is­fy Con­di­tion C; to achieve C, you need D; to achieve D, you need E… And so we set out on our jour­ney. The more for­tu­nate will begin at the clos­er points E, F, and G, while the less for­tu­nate will start fur­ther away. As we walk, we grad­u­al­ly become accus­tomed to it, and per­haps even achieve some­thing for­tu­nate­ly on Path X or Y. Dream A becomes increas­ing­ly dis­tant… And so we grad­u­al­ly learn to laugh at our­selves: ideals are full of promis­es, real­i­ty is very skin­ny…

  “The Boy and the Cher­ry Tree” tells a rather unusu­al sto­ry. While this seem­ing­ly min­i­mal­ist pic­ture book is clear­ly intend­ed to delight chil­dren, upon repeat­ed reflec­tion, it unex­pect­ed­ly reveals a resound­ing dec­la­ra­tion of dreams. The beau­ti­ful cher­ry tree is the boy’s dream, but between him and the tree lies a fast-flow­ing riv­er, strewn with count­less twigs and rocks that could cause bumps and bruis­es… The boy encoun­ters numer­ous obsta­cles, includ­ing the bird that always offers guid­ance at cru­cial moments. Of course, the great­est obsta­cle is him­self, but he final­ly plunges into the riv­er…

  This lit­tle book is actu­al­ly a true sto­ry, the author and the painter (the artist cou­ple) their own sto­ry. (Video:LThe fam­i­ly of the cre­ators of “The Boy and the Cher­ry Tree” )

  Suit­able for ages 3 and up; suit­able for read­ing aloud to chil­dren




May 20

# Argen­tine Primera División Rec­om­mend­ed Books # The Cat That Went to Heav­en (USA)
By Eliz­a­beth Coatesworth, illus­trat­ed by Sun Xiao­hang, trans­lat­ed by Sun Qi; Genglin Con­tem­po­rary Euro­pean and Amer­i­can Clas­sics Library; Hebei Juve­nile & Chil­dren’s Pub­lish­ing House, 2015


   
This short book, win­ner of the 1931 New­bery Medal, still feels very famil­iar today. The award was giv­en because the Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion judges rec­og­nized its “great con­tri­bu­tion to Amer­i­can chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture.” It’s essen­tial­ly a slim chil­dren’s nov­el, set in dis­tant Japan. A young painter, com­mis­sioned by a tem­ple to depict the Bud­dha’s ascen­sion, strug­gles with whether to include his beloved kit­ten in this cru­cial paint­ing. Why is it con­sid­ered such a “great con­tri­bu­tion”? Read it care­ful­ly and pon­der it, and you’ll like­ly under­stand. This live­ly and engag­ing sto­ry is rich in infor­ma­tion, encom­pass­ing a fas­ci­nat­ing folk tale from a for­eign land, an artis­tic expe­ri­ence, a pro­found eth­i­cal test, a glimpse into the life of Gau­ta­ma Bud­dha, and some of the Bud­dha’s pre­vi­ous life sto­ries. Read­ing it will unknow­ing­ly trans­port you to an extra­or­di­nary jour­ney.

    The sto­ry con­cludes, of course, with a cel­e­bra­tion of Bud­dha’s immense com­pas­sion, but atten­tive read­ers can’t help but won­der: Isn’t this also a reflec­tion of Christ’s uni­ver­sal love and tol­er­ance? It’s said that this female author, born into an Amer­i­can mer­chant fam­i­ly, began trav­el­ing the world with her fam­i­ly at the age of five, climb­ing the Alps and view­ing the pyra­mids of Egypt. In her youth, she jour­neyed through the East, vis­it­ing the Philip­pines, Chi­na, and Indone­sia, stay­ing in tem­ples dur­ing her trav­els. These expe­ri­ences clear­ly informed her writ­ing. Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, she also had a close friend named Louise Bech­tel, the found­ing edi­tor of Macmil­lan Chil­dren’s Books, the world’s first chil­dren’s book divi­sion. Nat­u­ral­ly, she became a pio­neer of con­tem­po­rary Amer­i­can chil­dren’s fic­tion. Per­haps it was fate.

    I was a lit­tle puz­zled read­ing this book: why would the char­ac­ters in the nov­el assume there’s a grudge between cats and Bud­dha? Why would the monks be reluc­tant to include a cat in the Bud­dha’s ascen­sion? As far as I know, Bud­dhists are quite fond of cats. I won­der what inspired the author to write this way?

    It is par­tic­u­lar­ly worth men­tion­ing that the illus­tra­tions and trans­la­tion of this Chi­nese ver­sion are excel­lent! This is a ver­sion worth col­lect­ing.

    Rec­om­mend­ed read­ing age: 8 years old and above; suit­able for adults to read aloud to chil­dren

(The last pic­ture is not from the book, it is for ref­er­ence when read­ing this book)




May 21

# Argen­tine Primera División Rec­om­mend­ed Books # Meng Jiangnu Weep­ing at the Great Wall, Tang Yam­ing
Text, illus­tra­tions by Cai Gao, Twen­ty-First Cen­tu­ry Pub­lish­ing House, 2015


   
This is a very sub­stan­tial pic­ture book of Chi­nese folk tales, pos­si­bly the first to fea­ture the Great Wall of Chi­na! It’s said that the orig­i­nal idea for this book was to cre­ate a pic­ture book about the Great Wall—and putting aside the mer­its and demer­its of this awe-inspir­ing human con­struc­tion, it’s a shame that it has­n’t been prop­er­ly told and depict­ed in a pic­ture book! Almost ten years ago, Mr. Nao Mat­sui came up with the idea, and Teacher Cai Gao began a lengthy process of research and cre­ation. Mr. Tang Yam­ing even­tu­al­ly took on the text, and the Japan­ese edi­tion was pub­lished in 2012, fol­lowed by a Chi­nese edi­tion in 2015. Nao Mat­sui said, “This book sur­pass­es The Sto­ry of Peach Blos­som Spring.”

   
On the sur­face, this is the famil­iar folk tale of Meng Jiangnu, search­ing for her hus­band to bring her win­ter clothes, and her tears col­laps­ing the 800-li Great Wall. The first half also bears echoes of Peach Blos­som Spring and Hua Mulan. But grad­u­al­ly, anoth­er thread emerges: the Great Wall, majes­tic and immen­si­ty. Clos­er inspec­tion reveals the details of the con­struc­tion site and the lives of the toil­ing ants. Final­ly, when the Great Wall col­laps­es, it has become a bound­less expanse of spir­its…

   
This isn’t the kind of pic­ture book designed to make chil­dren laugh, but per­haps it’s the kind of sto­ry we have to tell our chil­dren. We’ve come a long way from his­to­ry, car­ry­ing a heavy bur­den, and we should at least let our chil­dren know what that bur­den is. Pic­ture books may be the eas­i­est and most engag­ing way to tell this sto­ry.

   
Suit­able for ages 5 and up; suit­able for read­ing aloud to chil­dren

    Fur­ther read­ing:Lis­ten to Teacher Cai Gao talk about “Meng Jiangnu Weep­ing at the Great Wall”