“BoAi”: A special witness to the development of original picture books

In 1993, when “The Fox Spir­it in the Wild Gar­den” (the pre­de­ces­sor of “BoAi”) became the first Chi­nese pic­ture book to win the Gold­en Apple Award of the Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Illus­tra­tion Bien­ni­al (BIB), many Chi­nese peo­ple them­selves could not believe it, and some even doubt­ed: Could such a high-lev­el chil­dren’s book illus­tra­tion work be cre­at­ed by a Japan­ese?

Indeed, at that time, orig­i­nal pic­ture books in Chi­na were still in their infan­cy. Even such an excel­lent work could only be print­ed in a thou­sand copies, and most of these were giv­en away as gifts. The pic­ture book mar­ket and read­ers were not yet ready. I had the good for­tune to view one of those thou­sand copies, pub­lished in 1991, from a col­lec­tor. I was impressed by its splen­dor and sophis­ti­ca­tion, which seemed unbe­com­ing of the era, but I also noticed the influ­ence of tra­di­tion­al com­ic strips on graph­ic nar­ra­tives.

As we know, a com­ic strip con­sists of a pic­ture with some text, usu­al­ly in the mid­dle of the scene, with a fixed-size frame, usu­al­ly with the frame at the top and the text at the bot­tom. The orig­i­nal ver­sion of “The Fox Spir­it in the Wild Gar­den” broke the bound­aries of the frame. The left page of the dou­ble-leaf folio was a full-length, unframed paint­ing, while the right page was a close-up with blank space around the edges. The rel­e­vant text was placed above the right page, but still divid­ed into two parts, with arrows indi­cat­ing whether the text belonged to the left page or the image below the cur­rent page. This can be seen as a tran­si­tion­al form of graph­ic nar­ra­tive. How­ev­er, Pro­fes­sor Cai Gao adapt­ed this nar­ra­tive method well, mak­ing the nar­ra­tive rhythm per­fect­ly match the needs of the sto­ry.

This sto­ry, adapt­ed from “Jia Er” from the nov­el “Strange Sto­ries from a Chi­nese Stu­dio,” is filled with con­flict and a volatile plot, which sug­gests a series of prob­lems and solu­tions. For exam­ple, a child dis­cov­ers his moth­er’s trou­bles and ini­tial­ly for­mu­lates a plan. Then, he slash­es the fox’s tail with a knife, only to find the prob­lem per­sists. After track­ing the fox into the wilder­ness and dis­cov­er­ing the truth, he must calm­ly con­sid­er a solu­tion. This inter­lock­ing plot devel­op­ment cre­ates a nat­ur­al rhythm of ten­sion and relax­ation, per­fect­ly suit­ed to the afore­men­tioned graph­ic nar­ra­tive method.

Admit­ted­ly, adapt­ing Liaozhai sto­ries for chil­dren is noto­ri­ous­ly dif­fi­cult. Even a tale like “Jia Er,” a sto­ry of wit­ty demon-slay­ing and pun­ish­ing evil and pro­mot­ing good, pos­sess­es a cer­tain somber under­tone. The artist bold­ly uses black as the pri­ma­ry back­ground, while using con­trast­ing red and green to high­light the char­ac­ters, espe­cial­ly the wise and coura­geous child. The sto­ry pro­gress­es from a down­beat tone to a pos­i­tive one, build­ing to a cap­ti­vat­ing cli­max. By the fairy­tale end­ing of “they lived hap­pi­ly ever after,” the pre­vi­ous­ly dark­ened scenes are revis­it­ed, and the pure black offers a pow­er­ful sense of pow­er. While this work may not be appeal­ing to chil­dren, its inher­ent sim­plic­i­ty and hon­esty will sure­ly inspire under­stand­ing and respect in thought­ful chil­dren.

The 2008 reprint of “Bo’er” was a high­ly suc­cess­ful adap­ta­tion. The title was changed from “The Fox Spir­it in the Waste­land Gar­den” to “Bo’er,” fur­ther align­ing the book with chil­dren’s sto­ries. For the first time, the young hero was named “Bo’er” rather than “the mer­chan­t’s son,” and the focus shift­ed from the fox spir­it’s mis­chief to the young hero’s exor­cism. Care­ful read­ers will notice that the sto­ry down­plays the details of the fox spir­it’s entan­gle­ment. Instead, the nar­ra­tor adds nec­es­sary expla­na­tions dur­ing the exor­cism process, includ­ing Bao’er’s request for poi­son, poi­son­ing the wine, and stor­ing it in a liquor store, to pre­vent acci­den­tal harm. This demon­strates Bao’er’s atten­tive­ness and sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty, while also set­ting a good exam­ple for poten­tial chil­dren.

Yet, for some rea­son, the 2008 ver­sion ends with Bao’er exor­cis­ing the demon, “peace returns to Bao’er’s fam­i­ly, and the fam­i­ly lives hap­pi­ly togeth­er.” This is per­haps a typ­i­cal fairy tale end­ing. But since this is the sto­ry of a young hero, I imag­ine read­ers of all ages will be eager to know, “What hap­pened next?” “What hap­pened to Bao’er when he grew up?” This is addressed in Pu Songling’s orig­i­nal sto­ry, and only then can the sto­ry be com­plete.

I’m delight­ed to have rein­stat­ed the end­ing design in the lat­est ver­sion of “Bao Er.” I real­ly like the finale, which resem­bles a door god paint­ing, drawn by Teacher Cai Gao. It adds a touch of fes­tive joy to the sto­ry, com­plete­ly tran­scend­ing the atmos­phere of a fox spir­it tale. I believe chil­dren will linger a lit­tle longer in front of this image, which will com­plete­ly relax their ner­vous­ness and inspire them to see the promis­ing future of their lit­tle hero.

For adults who care about chil­dren’s edu­ca­tion, the sto­ry of “BoAi” offers some inspi­ra­tion. For exam­ple, we should nev­er under­es­ti­mate chil­dren and give them more trust and oppor­tu­ni­ties to devel­op. Fur­ther­more, when it comes to edu­ca­tion, we might learn from BoAi’s father and respect chil­dren’s pref­er­ences and strengths, teach­ing them in accor­dance with their apti­tude.

I think if Pu Songling were still alive, he would be hap­py to see his sto­ries adapt­ed into such child­like and inspir­ing pic­ture books.

Writ­ten in Bei­jing on Jan­u­ary 24, 2021