“Chinese History for Children,” a book suitable for all ages (winner of the 10th National Library Wenjin Award)

 
  First of all, I would like to con­grat­u­late “Chi­nese His­to­ry for Chil­dren” for win­ning the 10th Nation­al Library Wen­jin Award!

  
“Chi­nese His­to­ry for Chil­dren” is a mag­nif­i­cent series of short books. Although writ­ten specif­i­cal­ly for chil­dren, it spans 14 vol­umes. Begin­ning with mythol­o­gy, it unfolds from ancient Chi­nese leg­ends to the present day in 1949, guid­ing young read­ers on a jour­ney through five thou­sand years of his­to­ry. Its most notable strengths lie in its live­ly lan­guage and engag­ing sto­ry­telling, which appeals strong­ly to chil­dren. The nar­ra­tive is fre­quent­ly inter­spersed with invit­ing prompts, and each chap­ter fea­tures open-end­ed “Tell Me About It” prompts, encour­ag­ing read­ers to engage in reflec­tion and dis­cus­sion. The entire process feels like a knowl­edge­able, thought­ful, and enter­tain­ing adult engag­ing chil­dren in a his­tor­i­cal con­ver­sa­tion. Its grandeur lies not only in its vast scope and rich mate­r­i­al, but also in its rare open­ness. It goes beyond sim­ply telling enter­tain­ing his­tor­i­cal sto­ries, but strives to con­struct a clear his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive, invit­ing today’s read­ers to empathize and re-expe­ri­ence and re-eval­u­ate his­tor­i­cal fig­ures and events. The answers are clear­ly open-end­ed. It strives to help young read­ers under­stand that read­ing his­to­ry is not sim­ply a process of reach­ing con­clu­sions, but rather a jour­ney of engag­ing the mind and devel­op­ing new per­spec­tives.

 
 
The author, Mr. Chen Weip­ing, is a knowl­edge­able and ambi­tious pub­lish­er in Tai­wan and the founder of the renowned Xiaolu Pub­lish­ing House. When he found­ed the com­pa­ny in the 1980s, dri­ven by the lack of such books in the chil­dren’s mar­ket, he devot­ed three years to com­pil­ing this series. Over the years, the series has been a huge hit and con­tin­ues to be a best­seller. After sev­er­al revi­sions, it has cul­mi­nat­ed in the edi­tion we see today. Unlike most sim­i­lar books, this series does­n’t lim­it itself to focus­ing on spe­cif­ic his­tor­i­cal frag­ments or fig­ures, but instead seeks to present a coher­ent nar­ra­tive. The author clear­ly and direct­ly express­es his views, striv­ing to incor­po­rate the expe­ri­ences and per­spec­tives of young read­ers, invit­ing them to explore and dis­cuss the text. The illus­tra­tions are also par­tic­u­lar­ly com­mend­able. In addi­tion to metic­u­lous­ly curat­ing ref­er­ence images, the edi­tors also com­mis­sioned numer­ous renowned chil­dren’s illus­tra­tors to cre­ate a wealth of exquis­ite illus­tra­tions for young read­ers. The char­ac­ters are vivid­ly por­trayed and the sto­ry­telling is deeply mov­ing, mak­ing for a tru­ly enjoy­able read­ing expe­ri­ence that draws read­ers into the rel­e­vant con­texts. Over­all, this is a tru­ly impres­sive and sen­ti­men­tal chil­dren’s his­to­ry text­book, offer­ing diverse per­spec­tives and a rich tapes­try of emo­tions.

 
 
For some adult read­ers already quite famil­iar with Chi­nese his­to­ry, you might feel that this series of books, based on the selec­tion of mate­r­i­al, should have includ­ed more peo­ple or events; or that the nar­ra­tive approach is still insuf­fi­cient, and a dif­fer­ent approach would have made a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence. I think this is per­haps one of the feel­ings the author hopes to achieve in read­ers: to keep them inter­est­ed and unsat­is­fied, there­by stim­u­lat­ing a sense of engage­ment. There­fore, for old­er read­ers who love his­to­ry, the best results might be achieved if they can bring their younger read­ers along to read togeth­er.

 
 
Of course, if some adult read­ers have not had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to read through Chi­na’s 5,000-year his­to­ry, it will be very ben­e­fi­cial for them to read this set of books. After all, the expe­ri­ence of read­ing through this set of books is quite relax­ing and enjoy­able.

(Rec­om­mend­ed by: Argen­tine Primera División)