Children’s first book: starting with Miffy

More and more young par­ents are real­iz­ing that read­ing aloud to their chil­dren from an ear­ly age is not only an excel­lent way to con­nect with them, but also the best way to help them devel­op a love for read­ing and devel­op a habit ear­ly on. Choos­ing excel­lent and beau­ti­ful pic­ture books for this par­ent-child read­ing expe­ri­ence is like plant­i­ng seeds of hap­pi­ness in a child’s heart, a life­long com­pan­ion.

Pic­ture books have been devel­oped world­wide for over a cen­tu­ry, accu­mu­lat­ing a wealth of excel­lent works, includ­ing numer­ous mas­ter­pieces, many of which have been trans­lat­ed and intro­duced to Chi­na. How­ev­er, the vast major­i­ty of these works are more suit­able for old­er chil­dren. For exam­ple, well-known pic­ture books like “Guess How Much I Love You,” “The Giv­ing Tree,” “Goril­la,” and “Lit­tle House” are more suit­able for chil­dren over three years old. So, what are the best pic­ture books for chil­dren aged 0–3?

In fact, as ear­ly as the 1960s, Japan­ese pub­lish­er Nao Mat­sui was pon­der­ing this very ques­tion. Today, he is known as the “Father of Japan­ese Pic­ture Books” because, thanks to the efforts of him and a group of elite con­tem­po­raries, Japan­ese pic­ture book pub­lish­ing rose from a hum­ble begin­ning to a glob­al leader. The wide­spread pop­u­lar­i­ty of pic­ture book read­ing also pro­found­ly impact­ed edu­ca­tion in post­war Japan. Mat­sui longed to find a “first pic­ture book for chil­dren,” but none exist­ed in Japan at the time. He believed such a book “should use illus­tra­tions that are as accu­rate as pos­si­ble, giv­ing chil­dren a cor­rect impres­sion, with­out being arti­fi­cial, and depict­ing real objects real­is­ti­cal­ly.” Fur­ther­more, as a pic­ture book, it should “enable chil­dren to under­stand the sto­ry­telling process through the images,” thus prepar­ing them for the next stage of read­ing sto­ry­books.
 

In 1963, while vis­it­ing the Chil­dren’s Library in Ams­ter­dam, Nether­lands, Mr. Mat­sui Naoshi came across the new­ly pub­lished “Miffy the Bun­ny” series by Dick Bruna. He exclaimed, “The kind of book I’ve always dreamed of has actu­al­ly been cre­at­ed!” He then select­ed eight of the books for pub­li­ca­tion in Japan, nam­ing them “Chil­dren’s First Books.” Mat­sui Naoshi proved to be a for­mi­da­ble fig­ure. Over the past half cen­tu­ry, Dick Bruna’s “Miffy and Her Friends” series, span­ning over 100 titles, has become a world­wide favorite for infants and tod­dlers. As a unique work of art and design, it has also been admired and col­lect­ed by adult read­ers. For Japan­ese read­ers, “Miffy” holds a unique sig­nif­i­cance, serv­ing as a mod­el for edi­tors and chil­dren’s illus­tra­tors. Through a gen­er­a­tion’s efforts, Japan has its own unique “chil­dren’s first book.”

The new­ly released Chi­nese edi­tion of the “Miffy” series fea­tures ten pic­ture books, all fea­tur­ing the bun­ny Miffy. The books span the 1960s to the 1990s, encom­pass­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tive works from each peri­od of the Dutch illus­tra­tor Dick Bruna’s career. The sto­ries depict Miffy’s dai­ly life, such as trips to the beach, snow, the zoo, and the art gallery. They also fea­ture spe­cial events like her birth­day, a hos­pi­tal stay, and the loss of her ted­dy bear. They also explore inter­ac­tions with friends and fam­i­ly, such as vis­it­ing friends and grand­par­ents, and her sweet dreams. These sto­ries are close­ly relat­ed to chil­dren’s lives. The sto­ries are pri­mar­i­ly suit­able for chil­dren aged 2–6. How­ev­er, due to the clear and con­cise illus­tra­tions, sim­ple sto­ry­lines, and straight­for­ward, rhyming lan­guage, they are also suit­able for infants aged 6 to 8 months and old­er. Dick Bruna’s works are often cho­sen as ear­ly read­ing mate­ri­als for infants in Europe, Japan, and the Unit­ed States.

It is par­tic­u­lar­ly worth men­tion­ing that 8 of the 10 pic­ture books in the Chi­nese ver­sion are relat­ed to lit­tle Miffy falling asleep sweet­ly, so there is rea­son to believe that they will also become a trea­sure trove of bed­time sto­ries that are deeply loved by chil­dren.
 
 

 
 

 
 

 
Dick Bruna and Miffy 
   
Dick Bruna was born on August 23, 1927, in Utrecht, a small city in cen­tral Nether­lands. His father, a major pub­lish­er, want­ed him to fol­low in his foot­steps and sent him to Lon­don and Paris to study pub­lish­ing. How­ev­er, he became fas­ci­nat­ed with art design. To make a liv­ing, he began design­ing cov­ers and pro­mo­tion­al posters for his father’s pub­lish­ing house in 1951. He mar­ried Ire­na in 1953 and pub­lished his debut pic­ture book, “Apple,” that same year. The first Miffy book fol­lowed in 1955. 

   
That year, he went on vaca­tion to the sea­side with his wife and their one-year-old son. His son pestered him to tell him a sto­ry about a lit­tle bun­ny liv­ing in a gar­den, which inspired Bruner to cre­ate Miffy. Into Miffy’s sto­ry, the design­er poured his pater­nal love and fond child­hood mem­o­ries. Some­one once asked Bruna why Miffy’s mouth was drawn as an X, while the bun­ny’s mouth was drawn as an X with a hor­i­zon­tal line through it. Bruna replied that as a child, he had always thought a bun­ny’s mouth was an X, and that the hor­i­zon­tal line was added to the bun­ny’s mouth to make him look old­er. 

   
Brun­ner was a dili­gent and pro­lif­ic design­er. In addi­tion to cre­at­ing more than 120 pic­ture books, he also designed cov­ers for more than 2,000 books and more than 100 post­cards. He was also the recip­i­ent of numer­ous awards, includ­ing the Dutch Gold­en Brush, Sil­ver Brush, and Sil­ver Slate. For his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the cul­tur­al field, Brun­ner was knight­ed by the Queen of the Nether­lands in 1983 and knight­ed in 2001, and award­ed the Order of the Nether­lands Lion.
Com­man­der in the Order of the Lion of the
Nether­lands), which is the high­est hon­or for Dutch cit­i­zens. 
   
Bruner lived and worked in his home­town of Utrecht his entire life, and even now he rides his bicy­cle to his stu­dio every day. His home­town is so proud of him and Miffy that there’s a Miffy Square in Utrecht, fea­tur­ing a stat­ue of Miffy sculpt­ed by his sec­ond son. A ded­i­cat­ed exhi­bi­tion hall ded­i­cat­ed to Bruner’s work is locat­ed in the city’s cen­tral muse­um, wel­com­ing vis­i­tors from around the world dai­ly. 

    Utrecht is also home to anoth­er indus­tri­al design mas­ter, Ger­rit Rietveld.
Rietveld (1888–1964), a mas­ter of archi­tec­tur­al design and fur­ni­ture, is renowned for his epony­mous “Rietveld Chair,” which once led glob­al design trends. Today, the tiny rab­bit Miffy boasts a sim­i­lar rep­u­ta­tion, a fig­ure that should not be under­es­ti­mat­ed!
 
Bruna’s process of mak­ing Miffy