[Lecture Sharing] Lecture Outline on Fun Original Picture Books

   
The fol­low­ing is an out­line for the lec­ture “Fun Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books,” giv­en at the Nation­al Library’s Chil­dren’s Wen­jin Forum on May 14, 2016 (also known as Red Mud Vil­lage’s anniver­sary). It’s a brief read­ing list. Since half the audi­ence con­sist­ed of preschool­ers to mid­dle ele­men­tary school­ers, the main focus was sto­ry­telling. Just as I was about to add a few words of adult asides, the chil­dren would start to squirm and hum. But as soon as the wake-up stick was struck and the sto­ry began, the chil­dren imme­di­ate­ly qui­et­ed down. This time, we were focus­ing sole­ly on orig­i­nal pic­ture books, and they were equal­ly enthralled. :)

  In my plan, “Fun orig­i­nal pic­ture books” are “The Devel­op­ment of Pic­ture Books over the Past Cen­tu­ry” is a new chap­ter in the his­to­ry of pic­ture books. We should view orig­i­nal pic­ture books in the con­text of the entire devel­op­ment of pic­ture books. In this way, we will not be sur­prised by “Why are there so few domes­tic pic­ture books?” or “Why are there so many import­ed prod­ucts on the mar­ket?” Instead, we will be pleas­ant­ly sur­prised by the rapid devel­op­ment of orig­i­nal pic­ture books. For com­par­i­son: what a huge world has emerged since 1902, with so many amaz­ing mas­ter­pieces in every stage; and we have to talk about an emerg­ing world that we can only start from 2002… Growth requires wait­ing.

 
The rise of orig­i­nal pic­ture books in main­land Chi­na has been great­ly aid­ed by sev­er­al fac­tors. First, the guid­ance and assis­tance from our friends in Tai­wan. Hon­est­ly, with­out their help, main­land Chi­na would have tak­en off by at least ten or twen­ty years. Sec­ond, the pride of the entire Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty: the con­tri­bu­tions of over­seas Chi­nese to the pic­ture book world have been a source of great inspi­ra­tion and enlight­en­ment. Final­ly, with­in main­land Chi­na’s illus­tra­tion tra­di­tion, while com­ic strips aren’t pic­ture books, they offer invalu­able expe­ri­ence in many areas, demon­strat­ing a strong con­tin­u­a­tion of this tra­di­tion.

 
Among the three above, the first two can be said to be authen­tic Chi­nese. Mr. Yang Zhicheng was born in Shang­hai, grew up in Tian­jin, Shang­hai, Hong Kong, and oth­er places, and immi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States after he was 17 years old; Mr. Chen Jiang­hong was born and grew up in Tian­jin and grad­u­at­ed from the Cen­tral Acad­e­my of Fine Arts.
Tan is actu­al­ly half-Aus­tralian, his father is a Malaysian Chi­nese, and even his Chi­nese name was cho­sen by a Tai­wanese pub­lish­ing house… If you con­sid­er him Chi­nese, he should­n’t refuse.All right,The real rea­son is that I real­ly like his work!

 
The above list only includes some orig­i­nal Tai­wanese works pub­lished in main­land Chi­na, which also hap­pen to be my favorites. I gave the kids a detailed read­ing of “Who Needs a King?” and it was so enjoy­able! What was my Tai­wanese friend try­ing to say by using an African folk tale? Did he seem to be talk­ing about some­thing hap­pen­ing in main­land Chi­na? … Haha, I’ll nev­er tell you, even if you kill me. @#%&*@

 
“Paopao Town” is a very joy­ful sto­ry that can amuse both chil­dren and adults. Among the orig­i­nal works from the main­land, the most rare thing about it is its absur­di­ty, which push­es this kind of chil­dren’s fun to the extreme.


 
“Reunion” is very real­is­tic, and “We Want to Be First” looks like a fairy tale, but both are about the lives of con­tem­po­rary Chi­nese chil­dren, and both are told very well.


 
“Oh My God! Wrong!” will delight chil­dren and adults alike. While less indul­gent than “Run­away Town,” it seems more endur­ing. It’s one of those sto­ries that appears sim­ple on the sur­face but reveals pro­found mean­ing upon clos­er inspec­tion. Such a nat­ur­al blend of humor and pro­found phi­los­o­phy is rare in orig­i­nal pic­ture books.

 
Peng Yi shifts from fan­ta­sy to pic­ture books, trans­port­ing us into a famil­iar yet unfa­mil­iar pic­ture book world. It appears real­is­tic, yet it’s actu­al­ly fan­ta­sy. Yet, with­in this fan­ta­sy, real­i­ty is con­front­ed, com­pelling us to believe. When he uses the pho­tog­ra­phy lens, a lens he par­tic­u­lar­ly loves and excels at, to direct­ly tell the sto­ry, the images, while clear­ly real, still feel “unre­al,” like a fan­ta­sy, or per­haps an ide­al world. After fin­ish­ing his sto­ry “Bajau Chil­dren,” I asked the chil­dren present: “Would you like to live in that world?” The chil­dren shout­ed, “No!”—their quick response sur­prised me. I then asked: “Would you like to go there with your par­ents and make friends with the chil­dren there?” Only then did they relax, say­ing yes or nod­ding their heads. Per­haps they real­ly thought Uncle Pan­golin was going to kid­nap them some­where!

 
Don’t under­es­ti­mate these authen­tic tra­di­tion­al sto­ries. They’re no longer sim­ply beau­ti­ful­ly illus­trat­ed ver­sions of tra­di­tion­al tales; they actu­al­ly embody the human­is­tic sen­ti­ments and care for child­hood of many con­tem­po­rary cre­ators. I par­tic­u­lar­ly like the work of Pro­fes­sor Cai Gao, not because her work can “enter­tain” chil­dren (which is indeed dif­fi­cult to achieve), but because her work has a gen­uine qual­i­ty, a rich earthy fla­vor, and a leisure­ly rhythm that per­haps only Chi­nese peo­ple can under­stand. “The Sto­ry of Peach Blos­som Spring,” “Mulan,” and “Meng Jiangnu Weep­ing at the Great Wall” are three works that embody these qual­i­ties to the extreme.
 
The sto­ries of Jour­ney to the West and the Three King­doms that Yu Dawu drew are very inter­est­ing. On the sur­face, they are just some tra­di­tion­al sto­ries that every­one is famil­iar with. But if you look close­ly, and see them through the eyes of a child, they seem clum­sy, but they are full of fun. Look­ing at those pic­tures, you can’t help but want to laugh. So draw­ing Sun Wukong and Zhuge Liang is quite fun. Maybe we can try to look at these famous char­ac­ters from a dif­fer­ent angle.
, find the fun in it.


 
Xiang Hua and the Cen­tral Acad­e­my of Fine Arts’ Pic­ture Book Stu­dio have done some­thing tru­ly remark­able: retell tra­di­tion­al folk tales in a fairy­tale for­mat, illus­trat­ing them with exquis­ite, nar­ra­tive­ly pow­er­ful illus­tra­tions (rep­re­sent­ing the aca­d­e­m­ic style). This has been incor­po­rat­ed into a research and learn­ing cur­ricu­lum for pic­ture book cre­ators. So far, eight Chi­nese folk fairy tales have been pro­duced, and the work seems to be get­ting bet­ter and bet­ter. This process has also fos­tered excep­tion­al cre­ative tal­ent. In my lec­ture, I cit­ed “Dinosaur Express,” “The But­ter­fly Lovers,” and “A Meal on a Plate” as exam­ples of excep­tion­al works, all cre­at­ed by grad­u­ates of this pic­ture book stu­dio.

 
Xiong Liang has been exper­i­ment­ing with pic­ture book cre­ation since at least 2002. Before the lec­ture, I played the ani­ma­tion “Lit­tle Stone Lion,” one of his ear­ly mas­ter­pieces, orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished by Tai­wan’s He Ying Pub­lish­ing House. The fact that we can enjoy the exquis­ite pro­duc­tion of “Lit­tle Stone Lion” today is large­ly due to He Ying Pub­lish­ing House. Over the years, Xiong Liang has con­tin­u­ous­ly inno­vat­ed and rein­vent­ed him­self in the pic­ture book field. I think his most suc­cess­ful ven­ture is the “Peking Opera Cats” series, which seam­less­ly blends tra­di­tion­al ele­ments with unique­ly con­tem­po­rary expres­sions. It’s fun, engag­ing, and edu­ca­tion­al, and it makes peo­ple feel proud­ly “Chi­nese,” isn’t it?

 
It would be fun to trav­el around your home­town through books instead of always hang­ing out in Paris or New York. Of course, hang­ing out in Paris and New York is also nice, but if you can take a walk with your grand­ma and eat local snacks along the way, that feel­ing would prob­a­bly be more enjoy­able.

 
In recent years, Cao Wenx­u­an has made numer­ous attempts in the pic­ture book field. His tran­si­tion from a nov­el­ist (par­tic­u­lar­ly adept at com­ing-of-age nov­els) to a pic­ture book nar­ra­tive has tru­ly been a rebirth. Most of his pic­ture books, whether depict­ing peo­ple or ani­mals, res­onate with the con­cept of growth, and pos­sess a dis­tinct­ly aes­thet­ic qual­i­ty. “Crazy Chick­en” is a prime exam­ple. How­ev­er, when I read “Smoke,” his col­lab­o­ra­tion with Yu Rong, I was in awe—it tru­ly is a true pic­ture book! It’s also play­ful, humor­ous, and deeply mov­ing.

 
Strict­ly speak­ing, “Pan­da’s Sto­ry” might not be con­sid­ered a true main­land Chi­nese orig­i­nal, but judg­ing by the sto­ry itself and its ini­tial pub­li­ca­tion loca­tion, it cer­tain­ly is. The real rea­son is that I sim­ply adore this work. It’s not one of those “cute” pan­da sto­ries, but rather a deeply authen­tic one. Because of its authen­tic­i­ty, it’s incred­i­bly mov­ing, mak­ing one unable to resist falling in love with pan­das, humans, and the world they share.
 
“A Plate of Rice” is a gen­uine orig­i­nal, using a near-doc­u­men­tary approach to depict the birth of a grain of rice with such clar­i­ty and poet­ic grace. In this book, the “Twen­ty-Four Solar Terms” aren’t just a con­cept; they’re a tan­gi­ble part of nature. The fact that the author is so young fills me with hope.


 
Three rea­sons to read pic­ture books. The rea­sons for chil­dren are sim­ple, while the rea­sons for adults are a lit­tle more com­pli­cat­ed. Take your pick ^_^