Overview of the second episode of “Children’s Books and Christmas” on Himalaya Audio’s “Ajia Storytelling”

    Wel­come to lis­ten:Himalaya’s “Ajia Sto­ry­telling: Par­ent-Child Read­ing Pri­vate Lessons” Christ­mas Spe­cial — Explor­ing Christ­mas Cul­ture from the Per­spec­tive of Child Psy­chol­o­gy and the His­to­ry of Chil­dren’s Books

   
Christ­mas is a great gate­way for me to learn about chil­dren’s books. It was my daugh­ter who helped me open this mag­i­cal chan­nel. It was opened nat­u­ral­ly after I read some sto­ries to her. One book that is par­tic­u­lar­ly mem­o­rable for us is “The Gift Received on Christ­mas Eve” from the “Tim and Sharon” series.



   
This book taught us how to cel­e­brate Christ­mas with our chil­dren and helped me redis­cov­er the mean­ing of Christ­mas. San­ta Claus stayed in our home until our chil­dren were about 12 years old…

   
As my chil­dren grew up and learned more about chil­dren’s books, I lat­er learned that Christ­mas is actu­al­ly inex­tri­ca­bly linked to the his­to­ry of chil­dren’s book devel­op­ment. In a sense, the pros­per­i­ty of chil­dren’s books is large­ly due to Christ­mas!

   
Among the ear­ly Christ­mas books for chil­dren, per­haps the most famous is Dick­en­s’s A Christ­mas Car­ol… There are many ver­sions avail­able now, and I espe­cial­ly rec­om­mend
The illus­trat­ed ver­sion by Ital­ian illus­tra­tor Inno­cen­ti——


   
The birth of the mod­ern pic­ture book is also relat­ed to Christ­mas. The Tale of Peter Rab­bit, which is regard­ed as the ori­gin of the pic­ture book, was first pub­lished by Beat­rix Pot­ter in 1901 at her own expense. It was orig­i­nal­ly a black and white ver­sion, which was pre­pared as a gift for Christ­mas in 1901. The fol­low­ing year (1902), the Vaugh­an Com­pa­ny pub­lished a col­or ver­sion (the ver­sion we see today), which was also released at Christ­mas.



 
  Many of Miss Porter’s books were pub­lished dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son, but she did not actu­al­ly write about her ani­mals’ Christ­mas sto­ries.
By the way, because Miss Porter’s fam­i­ly’s reli­gious beliefs are “Monar­chism” which does not rec­og­nize the Trin­i­ty, her fam­i­ly actu­al­ly does not cel­e­brate Christ­mas, but she
I love it and often go to their homes for Christ­mas! Inter­est­ing­ly, among the three new Peter Rab­bit sto­ries writ­ten by the renowned actress and screen­writer Emma Thomp­son, there’s a spe­cial book called “Peter Rab­bit: A Christ­mas Sto­ry,” which I think is the best of the three!

   
Christ­mas sto­ries in chil­dren’s books are often mag­i­cal, and Dick­ens left a good tra­di­tion that great writ­ers and artists would explore the mean­ing behind the mag­ic in such mag­i­cal sto­ries.

   
From the good deeds of the four sis­ters at the begin­ning of “Lit­tle Women”, to the touch­ing Christ­mas sto­ry in “The Lit­tle House on the Prairie”, and the old tramp whose heart was melt­ed by the chil­dren in “The Fam­i­ly Under the Bridge”, to San­ta Claus in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” in the King­dom of Nar­nia, and the Christ­mas gifts Har­ry Pot­ter received over the years…they are not just fun sto­ries, they make us savor them for a long time in won­der­ful enjoy­ment and touch­ing moments.

   
Per­haps I for­got to men­tion “Hol­ly and Ivy,” a long pic­ture book filled with beau­ti­ful Christ­mas wish sto­ries. These beau­ti­ful sto­ries make us think about how beau­ti­ful wish­es, or hope, may be irra­tional, but they are so impor­tant to human sur­vival! They are more like a kind of faith, empow­er­ing us to live more pow­er­ful­ly.



   
Among the Christ­mas sto­ries, I would like to espe­cial­ly rec­om­mend “The Polar Express”. I hope we can always hear the won­der­ful bell sound; there are also “The Snow­man” and “San­ta Claus”. San­ta Claus is our role mod­el; and “The Christ­mas Tree in the Snow” in “Eat Bear and Sen­na Mouse”, which is like a mir­ror image of my daugh­ter and me… In fact, chil­dren’s wish­es may be so sim­ple and pure.




   
In addi­tion, there is also the new­ly released “Elois Christ­mas” in the “Crazy Eloise” series, which is also live­ly and fes­tive enough. Eloise is ”
This book is ded­i­cat­ed to adults who matured pre­ma­ture­ly. If you are already grown up but still want to retain some of your child­hood, this is prob­a­bly the most suit­able one:

    【Anoth­er book】

   
Oh, and I just found out there’s a mag­i­cal Christ­mas sto­ry­book called “Olaf and San­ta Claus,” which has been reprint­ed. If I’d known about this reprint, I would have told you about it, too. It’s my daugh­ter’s and my favorite Christ­mas sto­ry­book. We’ve read it count­less times togeth­er and always burst into laugh­ter. Now she’s a sopho­more in high school, and I sud­den­ly asked her, “What’s your favorite Christ­mas sto­ry­book?” She imme­di­ate­ly replied, “Olaf!” The most amaz­ing time was when we were in the hos­pi­tal, and she was get­ting an IV drip, which took a long time. We were so hap­py read­ing this book (it’s so long!), it felt like we were at a play­ground instead of a hos­pi­tal, O(∩_∩)O, haha~

   
I saw that the reprint of “Olaf and San­ta Claus” was divid­ed into three vol­umes, and it looked more beau­ti­ful­ly print­ed:


    Wel­come to lis­ten:Himalaya’s “Ajia Sto­ry­telling: Par­ent-Child Read­ing Pri­vate Lessons” Christ­mas Spe­cial — Explor­ing Christ­mas Cul­ture from the Per­spec­tive of Child Psy­chol­o­gy and the His­to­ry of Chil­dren’s Books