Chatting about the picture book “Sophie’s Masterpiece”

   
The day before yes­ter­day, I saw a moth­er talk­ing about “Sophie’s Mas­ter­piece” on the Red Mud Forum. I was very inspired and joined in the con­ver­sa­tion.
   
When I first encoun­tered the Tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese ver­sion of this book, I did­n’t have a strong impres­sion. I just thought it was a won­der­ful pic­ture book, some­what sim­i­lar to the sto­ry of Char­lot­te’s Web, and very suit­able for chil­dren. That was all. After the Sim­pli­fied Chi­nese ver­sion was pub­lished, I often read it to my chil­dren, espe­cial­ly recent­ly. Through inter­act­ing with them, I grad­u­al­ly dis­cov­ered what a beau­ti­ful book it is.
 
   
I haven’t specif­i­cal­ly stud­ied the back­ground of this book, so I’m just shar­ing some of my per­son­al thoughts from read­ing it.
   
I have told this book to chil­dren of dif­fer­ent ages, from as young as 4 or 5 years old to upper grades of ele­men­tary school and junior high school stu­dents, and their reac­tions were dif­fer­ent.
   
There was a group of first-grade chil­dren (from a school for chil­dren of migrant work­ers) to whom I was unable to read the entire book, so I had to switch to a read­ing-aloud for­mat mid­way, skip­ping some of the detailed lan­guage descrip­tions. But in a small moun­tain vil­lage in Han­wang, anoth­er group of chil­dren of about the same age were able to lis­ten to me qui­et­ly to the end.

   
I par­tic­u­lar­ly empha­size “read it in its entire­ty” because I think the text of this book is very beau­ti­ful and worth lis­ten­ing to and read­ing qui­et­ly and savor­ing care­ful­ly.
   
In the process of talk­ing to the chil­dren, I found that many of them do hate spi­ders, espe­cial­ly the girls. So this sto­ry sur­prised the chil­dren a lit­tle, because it was obvi­ous that they all liked Sophie.
 


   
The younger grades were less like­ly to engage in a dis­cus­sion about why Sophie knit­ted a blan­ket for the baby, but I once suc­cess­ful­ly got a group of sixth graders to express their feel­ings. One child, among them, said that it was because the young woman smiled at Sophie.

   
Sophie’s image and sto­ry remind me of those artists who, despite their life­long decline, under­stand the art of liv­ing (or the art of liv­ing for life), but no one under­stands them, or they don’t have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case this tal­ent (even to just one or two peo­ple). Young women are Sophie’s audi­ence. It’s a bit like O. Hen­ry’s “The Last Leaf.”

   
The com­par­i­son between “Sophie’s Mas­ter­piece” and “Char­lot­te’s Web” is also quite inter­est­ing. It’s a long sto­ry. Both sto­ries have babies at the end, but in “Char­lot­te’s Web,” Char­lot­te’s three daugh­ters are left behind. This is unique in chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture and is full of mean­ing.


   
Why did­n’t the artist make Sophie cuter? I think she’s already cute enough. That’s how Sophie looks. Think­ing she’s ugly is just a human per­spec­tive. From a spi­der’s per­spec­tive, the land­la­dy, the cap­tain, and the cook don’t look par­tic­u­lar­ly pret­ty. :) The Ori­en­tal woman isn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly beau­ti­ful, but when she smiles, she looks quite pret­ty. I also think Sophie looks pret­ty when she’s lean­ing on that hair­pin and look­ing at the moon. Beau­ty isn’t about out­ward appear­ance, but about the per­cep­tion with­in a spe­cif­ic con­text and per­spec­tive.

   
To like Sophie, you have to like her for who she is.

   
So the beau­ty of Sophie’s mas­ter­piece lies only in this sto­ry, in that gray apart­ment, on the gray floor above, by the gray win­dow, beside the bed of a poor moth­er, with the new­born baby cov­ered in a blan­ket that looked like a small blan­ket pre­pared for a prince. Only those who are tru­ly atten­tive can per­ceive every­thing woven into the blan­ket, because it is invis­i­ble to ordi­nary eyes.

 
【About the works and creators】（Reprinted fromRed Mud Web­site)
 
   
“Sophie’s Mas­ter­piece” tells the sto­ry of a tiny spi­der, weav­ing a stur­dy life with fine silk threads. The world of spi­ders is tru­ly fas­ci­nat­ing, but most peo­ple don’t under­stand them well. When they encounter them, they react with dis­gust or fear, much like the land­la­dy, the cap­tain, and the cook in this sto­ry. Sophie per­se­veres, cre­at­ing pieces with diverse func­tions. Her skills are refined through repeat­ed set­backs, and she ulti­mate­ly com­pletes the “great mas­ter­piece” pre­dict­ed by her child­hood friend. At that moment, “Sophie weaves her own heart into it.” Sophie not only com­pletes a blan­ket of warmth for a new life, but also uses her final remain­ing strength to cre­ate a mas­ter­piece “like one meant for a prince.” This tru­ly inspires awe and won­der! 

 
About the Author: 
    Eileen Sianel­li
Spinel­li, a best­selling sto­ry­teller, spe­cial­izes in heart­warm­ing, every­day themes. When she was young, liv­ing in a rent­ed apart­ment, she met a young, impov­er­ished moth­er who, unable to afford a blan­ket, had resort­ed to using a worn, brown blan­ket pro­vid­ed by the land­la­dy for her new­born baby. Years lat­er, Spinel­li still vivid­ly remem­bered the inci­dent. She wrote the sto­ry of Sophie, ful­fill­ing her orig­i­nal wish to give the baby a beau­ti­ful blan­ket. She and her hus­band, also a writer, set­tled in Penn­syl­va­nia, USA.
 
    Jane Dell
Dyer, an award-win­ning illus­tra­tor who has illus­trat­ed more than twen­ty pic­ture books. She sought infor­ma­tion for Sophie’s sto­ry from a small herb called Pisau­ri­na.
Mira’s spi­ders inspired her work. Most spi­ders build webs to feed, but this par­tic­u­lar species, known for its brood­ing skills, uses its webs almost exclu­sive­ly as a means of pro­tect­ing its young. Dale suc­cess­ful­ly por­trays the char­ac­ter of Sophie, weav­ing a del­i­cate and mov­ing sto­ry­line. She cur­rent­ly lives in Mass­a­chu­setts, USA.