Bridge of Ajia

Category: Ajia’s Commentary

  • 《秋千》：一本值得送给未来的“自己”的非定制图画书

    “The Swing”: A Non-Customized Picture Book Worth Gifting to Your Future Self

    writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Brit­ta Teken­troup, trans­lat­ed by Ajia, Xin­jiang Youth Pub­lish­ing House, 2025

    The swing has always been there.

    It looks out to sea and invites every­one to take a seat.

    …

    The swing is still there.

    It looks out to sea and invites every­one to take a seat.

    It is a place of begin­nings

    …

    This is the begin­ning and end of “The Swing”, writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Ger­man pic­ture book artist Brit­ta Teck­en­trup. It is like the ebb and flow of the tide on the beach, ris­ing is also falling, falling is also ris­ing; it is also like a cycle of time, the begin­ning is also the end, the end is also the begin­ning…

    ​This pic­ture book is 160 pages long, far exceed­ing the length of a nor­mal “chil­dren’s pic­ture book”. The small square size book opens into a stretched rec­tan­gle; the pages are some­times half text and half pic­ture, some­times the whole pic­ture with­out words fills the whole page, some­times the words are dot­ted like musi­cal notes, some­times the pic­ture is reduced to leave blank space beside or above and below, and some­times it is divid­ed into reg­u­lar or irreg­u­lar small pic­tures, the rhythm is accel­er­at­ed, and the imaged text also sways along… The lay­out com­po­si­tion is like a poem and paint­ing, reveal­ing a qui­et con­tem­pla­tion, and in the con­stant change, it hides a gen­tle and warm leap. Turn­ing the pages gen­tly and read­ing qui­et­ly, it seems as if you can hear the sooth­ing sound of the waves, or a famil­iar and vague piece of music.

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  • 打破常规的叙事与打破常规的思维

    Breaking all the rules—in storytelling and in thinking!

    In an age of infor­ma­tion overload—where opin­ions flood every cor­ner of our screens—what do you do when some­one insists, “What­ev­er you do, don’t trustX”, Do you believe them? Or not? Have you ever found your­self on the verge of trust­ingX or Y,only to be hit by a sud­den twist… then a twist on the twist… then a twist on the twist of the twist? So when you open a brand-new pic­ture book titled Don’t Trust Fish, the ques­tion prac­ti­cal­ly leaps off the cov­er: Should you trust it? Or not?

    Don’t Trust Fish (Chi­nese ver­sion) (trans­lat­ed by Sen Xiao­jing, Relay Press 2025)

    I had the chance to read a dig­i­tal pre­view of this book before its glob­al release, and inter­est­ing­ly enough, even before its offi­cial pub­li­ca­tion date—April 8, 2025 (exact­ly sev­en days after April Fools’ Day!)—the book has already made waves among ear­ly read­ers. Thanks to its sharp humor, unex­pect­ed rever­sals, and sheer orig­i­nal­i­ty, it has gar­nered glow­ing advance praise from casu­al read­ers and pro­fes­sion­al review­ers alike. Peo­ple are cel­e­brat­ing the book’s inven­tive spir­it, espe­cial­ly its bold use of an unre­li­able nar­ra­tor, which deliv­ers deli­cious­ly dark humor wrapped in a child-friend­ly pack­age. But what makes this book tru­ly stand out is how its cre­ators sub­tly weave in ele­ments of sci­ence lit­er­a­cy and media aware­ness, turn­ing what looks like a sim­ple pic­ture book into some­thing far more lay­ered. For read­ers eager to dis­cov­er what pic­ture books can real­ly do, this is the kind of title that makes you sit up and pay atten­tion.

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  • 《原创图画书阅读与精品》访谈（四）

    Interview on “Original Picture Books: Selected Readings and Highlights” (Part 4)

    Intro­duc­tion: This is an inter­view pod­cast con­duct­ed on “Pic­ture Book Lol­lipop”, host­ed by Xiaox­i­ang and guest Ajia. Start­ing from the ref­er­ence book “Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books: Select­ed Read­ings and High­lights” pub­lished at the end of 2024, an in-depth con­ver­sa­tion was held around the selec­tion cri­te­ria, his­tor­i­cal con­text, cur­rent themes and future devel­op­ment of orig­i­nal pic­ture books. The record­ing time is on the evening of Jan­u­ary 3, 2025, and the broad­cast time is Jan­u­ary 17, 2025.

    The fol­low­ing text is com­piled as an excerpt. To lis­ten to the full pod­cast, please click the fol­low­ing audio link:

    Himalaya:38 Dia­logue with Teacher Ajia: Has the Spring of Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books Arrived?Pic­ture Book Lol­lipopFree online read­ing, lis­ten­ing and down­load­ing— Himalayas

    Micro­cosm:http://t.cn/A6uDFbvy

    Click to open »> Part I | Part 2 | Part 3

    [Part 4]

    …

    All the sto­ries we tell are, in a sense, retellings of clas­sics.
    It’s just that many of us haven’t read so many sto­ries, so we always feel that this sto­ry is new and that sto­ry is new to us.
    But in my opin­ion, all sto­ries are actu­al­ly old sto­ries.

    Xiaox­i­ang:

    In addi­tion to the deep­en­ing of the sto­ry and the exten­sion of the mean­ing that you just men­tioned, I also par­tic­u­lar­ly hope to see more diver­si­ty and rich­ness in visu­al expres­sion.

    In fact, in terms of folk tra­di­tions, ours are rich­er than those of South Korea and Japan in terms of mate­ri­als and appear­ance.

    So when adapt­ing folk tra­di­tions, shouldn’t our orig­i­nal pic­ture books also present a rich­er look than those of our neigh­bor­ing coun­tries?

    Ajia:

    I think it also comes down to fate. After inter­view­ing many cre­ators, I feel that the cre­ative process real­ly depends on a sense of des­tiny.

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  • 《原创图画书阅读与精品》访谈（三）

    Interview on “Original Picture Books: Selected Readings and Highlights” (Part 3)

    Intro­duc­tion: This is an inter­view pod­cast con­duct­ed on “Pic­ture Book Lol­lipop”, host­ed by Xiaox­i­ang and guest Ajia. Start­ing from the ref­er­ence book “Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books: Select­ed Read­ings and High­lights” pub­lished at the end of 2024, an in-depth con­ver­sa­tion was held around the selec­tion cri­te­ria, his­tor­i­cal con­text, cur­rent themes and future devel­op­ment of orig­i­nal pic­ture books. The record­ing time is on the evening of Jan­u­ary 3, 2025, and the broad­cast time is Jan­u­ary 17, 2025.

    The fol­low­ing text is com­piled as an excerpt. To lis­ten to the full pod­cast, please click the fol­low­ing audio link:

    Himalaya:38 Dia­logue with Teacher Ajia: Has the Spring of Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books Arrived?Pic­ture Book Lol­lipopFree online read­ing, lis­ten­ing and down­load­ing— Himalayas

    Micro­cosm:http://t.cn/A6uDFbvy

    Click to open »> Part I | Part 2

    Part 3

    …

    Every­one thinks that this book (The Return of Radish) is a long-stand­ing folk tale, but in fact it is an orig­i­nal work by a Chi­nese writer in 1955, and it is adapt­ed from a sto­ry in the Bat­tle of Shang­gan­ling dur­ing The Kore­an War.

    Xiaox­i­ang:

    Yes, I also learned about this after read­ing your book. It’s real­ly amaz­ing!

    I also remem­ber that at the Shang­hai Chil­dren’s Book Fair last year, I inter­viewed Mr. Ye Jun­liang from the French Hongfei Pub­lish­ing House. He men­tioned that they also pub­lished this book “The Return of Radish” in France, and the illus­tra­tor was the French girl Clemence Pol­let who drew the French ver­sion of “Mulan”. Her illus­tra­tions are very con­sis­tent with the con­tem­po­rary aes­thet­ic style. So I think this sto­ry is real­ly mag­i­cal. ​

    French ver­sion of “The Return of Radish”

    Then I think we can talk about some fur­ther top­ics.

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  • 《原创图画书阅读与精品》访谈（二）

    Interview on “Original Picture Books: Selected Readings and Highlights” (Part 2)

    Intro­duc­tion: This is an inter­view pod­cast con­duct­ed on “Pic­ture Book Lol­lipop”, host­ed by Xiaox­i­ang and guest Ajia. Start­ing from the ref­er­ence book “Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books: Select­ed Read­ings and High­lights” pub­lished at the end of 2024, an in-depth con­ver­sa­tion was held around the selec­tion cri­te­ria, his­tor­i­cal con­text, cur­rent themes and future devel­op­ment of orig­i­nal pic­ture books. The record­ing time is on the evening of Jan­u­ary 3, 2025, and the broad­cast time is Jan­u­ary 17, 2025.

    The fol­low­ing text is com­piled as an excerpt. To lis­ten to the full pod­cast, please click the fol­low­ing audio link:

    Himalaya:38 Dia­logue with Teacher Ajia: Has the Spring of Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books Arrived?Pic­ture Book Lol­lipopFree online read­ing, lis­ten­ing and down­load­ing – Himalayas

    Micro­cosm:http://t.cn/A6uDFbvy

    »> Click to open Part 1

    [Part 2]

    …

    So I had a basic idea at that time: if we were to write the first book on the com­pi­la­tion of orig­i­nal pic­ture books, we must not miss those basic books.

    This was my ini­tial start­ing point.

    Xiaox­i­ang:

    Was the process of draft­ing your list of 62 books quick? Or did you actu­al­ly think about it for a long time?

    Among these 62 books, which one or which ones do you think are the most dif­fi­cult to choose? And which ones can you decide very quick­ly and feel that “this is a must-have”? Can you give some exam­ples?

    Ajia:

    We prob­a­bly start­ed this in 2021. The time­line I record­ed start­ed in April 2021. When I was sure I was going to do it, I actu­al­ly had a list in my mind because I had been prepar­ing for it over the years.

    But I still have to con­vince every­one, I need a good rea­son. I cer­tain­ly don’t say that I have already decid­ed “these are the books”, but I have an idea why I chose these books. This idea can actu­al­ly be traced back to 2005 to 2006, when it was already in its infan­cy.

    Why do I say so?

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  • 《原创图画书阅读与精品》访谈（一）

    Interview on “Original Picture Books: Selected Readings and Highlights” (Part 1)

    Intro­duc­tion: This is an inter­view pod­cast con­duct­ed on “Pic­ture Book Lol­lipop”, host­ed by Xiaox­i­ang and guest Ajia. Start­ing from the ref­er­ence book “Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books: Select­ed Read­ings and High­lights” pub­lished at the end of 2024, an in-depth con­ver­sa­tion was held around the selec­tion cri­te­ria, his­tor­i­cal con­text, cur­rent themes and future devel­op­ment of orig­i­nal pic­ture books. The record­ing time is on the evening of Jan­u­ary 3, 2025, and the broad­cast time is Jan­u­ary 17, 2025.

    The fol­low­ing text is com­piled as an excerpt. To lis­ten to the full pod­cast, please click the fol­low­ing audio link:

    Himalaya:38 Dia­logue with Teacher Ajia: Has the Spring of Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books Arrived? _Picture Book Lollipop_Free Online Read­ing, Lis­ten­ing and Down­load­ing – Himalaya

    Micro­cosm:http://t.cn/A6uDFbvy

    [Part 1]

    Xiaox­i­ang:

    Hi, every­one, wel­come to the new episode of “Pic­ture Book Lol­lipop”. I am Xiaox­i­ang.

    It’s been a long time since we last updat­ed the pod­cast, but the pod­cast is final­ly online. The last episode was dur­ing the sum­mer vaca­tion, and this one will be the last one dur­ing the Lunar New Year.

    Because it is the end of the year, it is actu­al­ly quite suit­able to talk about some top­ics relat­ed to inven­to­ry and sum­ma­ry.

    What we are going to talk about today is a top­ic that every­one is very inter­est­ed in — about our orig­i­nal pic­ture books.

    Teacher Ajia has just pub­lished a the­o­ret­i­cal book on orig­i­nal pic­ture books, called “Orig­i­nal Pic­ture Books: Select­ed Read­ings and High­lights”. In this book, Teacher Ajia ana­lyzes the devel­op­ment of orig­i­nal Chi­nese pic­ture books from mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives, such as cul­ture and art, and lists 62 rep­re­sen­ta­tive works from 1955 to 2020.

    We have also rec­om­mend­ed this book on Lol­lipop’s Decem­ber new book list, and read­ers have respond­ed very enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly. So I think today is a par­tic­u­lar­ly good oppor­tu­ni­ty to talk about this book, as well as the many ques­tions and thoughts about orig­i­nal pic­ture books that can­not be exhaust­ed in the book.

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  • 唤起生命活力的善良与野性的魔法——评张奕颖自写自画的两部作品

    The Magic of Kindness and Wildness That Awakens the Vitality of Life — A Review of Two Author-Illustrated Works by Gracey Zhang

    Children’s kind­ness and wild­ness are, at their core, com­ple­men­tary forces—both are essen­tial ele­ments in awak­en­ing the vital­i­ty of life.

    Cov­er of the Chi­nese ver­sion of “Lara’s Words ”

    Gracey Zhang has quick­ly emerged in the field of chil­dren’s books with her unique visu­al style and del­i­cate abil­i­ty to cap­ture emo­tions. Her debut pic­ture­book “Lala’s Words”, pub­lished in 2021, was eye-catch­ing and won the indus­try’s pres­ti­gious Ezra Jack Keates Illus­tra­tion Award in 2022. In recent years, Gracey Zhang has col­lab­o­rat­ed with authors on at least six pic­ture books, all of which have been wide­ly praised. Among them, The Upside Down Hat (writ­ten by Steven Balt­sar) and Nigel and the Moon (writ­ten by Antwan Eady) have already been pub­lished in Chi­nese edi­tions. How­ev­er, it is her author-illus­trat­ed works that remain the most com­pelling. Her sec­ond solo title, When Rubin Plays, will soon be intro­duced to Chi­nese read­ers along­side her debut, Lala’s Words.

    When Rubin Plays

    Lala, as described by Gracey Zhang, is a Chi­nese immi­grant girl who is ener­getic and kind-heart­ed. In her moth­er’s eyes, she is a lit­tle “wild”. She is always unwill­ing to stay at home and would rather spend the whole day with wild flow­ers and weeds. What her moth­er can­not under­stand is that Lala actu­al­ly express­es her love for the world through “dia­logue” with plants. “Lala’s Words” not only shows Lala’s unique con­nec­tion with nature, but also con­veys the pow­er of lan­guage and the heal­ing pow­er of kind­ness. “When Rubin Plays” focus­es on the growth of a local Boli­vian boy, Rubin. The back­ground is set in a small town on the edge of a “wild” for­est. Rubin con­ducts his own musi­cal explo­ration with the help of ani­mals, high­light­ing the joy of free and unre­strained self-expres­sion. Both books explore the impact of cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences on indi­vid­ual growth and show the “mag­ic” of the coex­is­tence of kind­ness and wild­ness in chil­dren’s hearts.

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  • 新译作《天生大坏蛋》出炉

    New translation of “Born Bad” is out

    The third book I trans­lat­ed in 2025 was Born Bad, writ­ten by CK Smouha and illus­trat­ed by Stephen Smith. This book was first pub­lished in the UK in 2018, and I sub­mit­ted the Chi­nese trans­la­tion in July 2019. The Chi­nese ver­sion was almost pub­lished in 2023, and final­ly came out in 2025.

    This book is CK Smo­ha’s pic­ture book debut. The writ­ing style is sim­ple and plain. The “wolf” appears direct­ly as the pro­tag­o­nist, and then a series of dia­logues are car­ried out with oth­er ani­mals. It is a bit like a philo­soph­i­cal dia­logue, and also has a sense of dra­ma. The dia­logue nat­u­ral­ly includes all kinds of knowl­edge about the rel­e­vant ani­mals. It seems play­ful and humor­ous on the sur­face, but it is full of metaphors about real­i­ty behind it.

    《天生大坏蛋》封面
    “Born to be a Badass” cov­er

    狼身为狼，并不开心。
    当他照镜子的时候，看起来很坏。
    当他看起来很坏的时候，感觉很不好。
    当他感觉很不好的时候，就会做坏事。

    Wolf was­n’t hap­py being wolf.

    When he looked in the mir­ror, he looked BAD.

    And when he looked bad, he felt bad, and

    when he felt bad, he act­ed bad.

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  • 读新书《地球升起》有感

    Thoughts on reading the new book Earthrise

    I fin­ished read­ing a new book by Leonard S. Mar­cus over the week­end: “Earth­rise: The Sto­ry of the Pho­to­graph That Changed the Way We See Our Plan­et”

    This book was just released in the U.S. on March 4, 2025. It’s avail­able on Kin­dle, and the title could be trans­lat­ed into Chi­nese as 《地球升起：一张改变人类视野的照片》. The term Earth­rise is quite inter­est­ing — it par­al­lels Sun­rise and Moon­rise, which would sug­gest trans­lat­ing it as “地出” (like “日出”), but that sounds odd. Trans­lat­ing it as “地球崛起” (like Rise of the Plan­et of the Apes) would be strange too. So I’d say just go with “地球升起,” which reflects the orig­i­nal name of the icon­ic pho­to fea­tured on the cov­er.

    Earth­rise cov­er

    As a children’s book his­to­ri­an, Mar­cus has writ­ten sev­er­al his­to­ry books for young read­ers. Earth­rise fol­lows the same nar­ra­tive approach as his pre­vi­ous work, “Mr. Lin­coln Sits for His Por­trait” (2023) — using a sin­gle famous pho­to­graph as an entry point to explore the deep­er his­tor­i­cal con­text behind it.

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