Stay away from junk books! Five principles to help you choose good children’s picture books and stories

I still remember that in 2011, when Rooney was just born, there were very few picture books available on the market. Most of them were the following five children\’s books with simple pictures, rough printing, and strong didactic stories. Childhood, the leader of the National Story Mom Volunteer Group Teacher Xinmeng calls them junk books (by the way, I also bought them at the beginning): 1 The first type of junk books are books mass-produced by computers. People with a little bit of art foundation can draw such a book for their children on the computer in half an hour. It neither has any sense of beauty nor conveys any humanistic spirit. What’s even scarier is that some books are directly screenshots from animations. 2 The second type of junk books are books that help you learn to read by looking at pictures. Many of the books we read when we were children were books that help us learn to read and understand by looking at pictures. Many people think that since reading is taught, children must first learn to read. But literacy is not the same as reading. Children before the age of 6 must mainly read picture books that combine pictures and text. In the process of reading picture books, parents read the words and the children read the pictures. Children also read words as pictures. If a word appears repeatedly, or if your child\’s favorite book requires you to read it again and again, he will gradually recognize these words. Through so many pictures, of course I understand the meaning of the words. When I use these words in the process of writing and expression in elementary school, I will definitely be very precise. Therefore, children who have grown up reading picture books do not need to worry about whether they can read or not, or even worry about their future writing. 3 The third type of junk books are books like Ultraman. These books come from Japan, but Japanese parents never read such books to their children because they are full of violence. If a child reads such a book and only learns to use violence to solve problems, the first person he will deal with will definitely be his parents, and the unlucky one will be his family, and then society. 4 The fourth type of junk books are books with very colorful and dazzling colors. Everyone knows that harsh sounds are called noises. This kind of book, which strongly stimulates children\’s eyes, is believed by some parents to help cultivate their children\’s recognition of colors. In fact, otherwise, it will damage the quality of the child\’s vision and directly affect the child\’s aesthetic level. Moreover, books with too bright colors generally have a strong ink smell, and some poorly printed books also contain a lot of formaldehyde. You should never buy such books. 5 The fifth type of junk books are cartoon books full of pinyin and annotations. Some parents are very happy and think this kind of book is good. Not only does it allow children to recognize words, but also learn pinyin, allowing children to understand the meaning inside. For only 8 yuan, your child can graduate from primary school, which is a great deal. If you think so, you are totally wrong. Not only do we not advocate that children become literate too early, but we also do not advocate that children learn these boring pinyin too early. Such books often appear in \”Three Hundred Tang Poems\”. Such a book not only has unsightly images, but also seriously affects the reading experience. (Note: The above picture is excerpted from the article by @child心梦A teacher, and has been authorized.) These shoddy books not only solidify children\’s thinking, but also seriously damage children\’s aesthetics and reduce children\’s reading taste. Therefore, we are giving children The first thing to do when choosing a book is to stay away from these books. However, there are more and more good picture books on the market today, and some picture books haveThere are so many versions, it’s really dazzling, I really don’t know how to choose? Many friends who follow my official account add me on WeChat and ask, \”Recommend some picture books for me.\” This gives me a headache. Because there are so many good picture books available now, how can I recommend them? To be honest, reading is a very personal experience. What I like may not be what you like. Furthermore, I don’t know your child’s age, personality, interests, etc. If I am just recommending it to you based on my own experience, it may not be true. Is it suitable for your children? Therefore, today I will no longer recommend book lists to you. There are a lot of book lists online. You can also get several book lists I summarized before by replying to \”book list\” in this official account. As the saying goes, it is better to teach a man to fish than to teach him a fish. Instead of recommending a book list, it is better to summarize some of my basic principles for selecting books. It will be more reliable for everyone to select books based on these principles. I would like to emphasize that your children know best, so parents must learn to choose books for their children. We cannot steal this if we are lazy. The first is to pay attention to the award-winning works at home and abroad. Although the award-winning works are not necessarily the best, they are definitely above the standard. If you are new to picture books, you might as well start with the award-winning works. The internationally renowned book awards include: the American Caldecott Medal, the International Hans Christian Andersen Award, the British Kate Greenaway Award, the Bologna International Children\’s Book Fair Best Children\’s Book Award, the French \”Saint-Exupéry\” Children\’s Literature Award, the Swedish Lin Glenn Award, Japan Picture Book Award, etc.; domestic ones include Feng Zikai Picture Book Award, Xinyi Picture Book Award, etc. The second is to target well-known children\’s book publishing organizations. Every time you read picture books to your children, it is recommended that you read out the book publishing information. The more you read, the more often you will naturally find out how often picture books from certain publishers appear on your bookshelf. very high. For example, most of our books are from Hebei Education Press, Nanhai Publishing Company, 21st Century Press, and Jielie Press. When selecting books, if you see books from these publishers, you will basically not be disappointed when you buy them. In addition to looking at publishers, you can also pay attention to children\’s book brand organizations, such as Love Tree, Pubulan, Qiqi, Genglin, Double Helix, Duxiaoku, Dolphin Media, Dandelion, Yutian, Xinyi, Xinxiyue, etc. Sometimes I don’t know which book to buy, so I will directly choose picture books I have never read from the series recommended by these children’s book organizations. Third, when starting to read to children from the works of picture book masters, in addition to paying attention to the publishing information of the books, you must also focus on the authors and illustrators. Reading the name of the author (illustration) is not only a kind of respect for the creator. If you read more, you will find that children have special preferences for books by certain authors (illustrations). Then we will follow the picture to find out. Just buy their works and read them to your children. For example, when Rooney was more than two years old, he liked \”The Very Hungry Caterpillar\” very much, so I bought other picture books by Eric Carle, such as \”Dad, I Want the Moon\”, \”Brown Bear, Brown Bear, You\” What are you looking at?\” and so on. He really liked it too. I have read so many picture books, and some of my favorite picture book masters are: Anthony Brown, Leo Leoni, John Burningham, Eric Carr, David Wisner, MoReese Sendak, Miyanishi Tatsuya, Gomi Taro, Sano Yoko, Anno Mitsuya, etc., you can also focus on them. The fourth is to pay attention to well-known translators. Sometimes, the same picture book imported from abroad has many versions translated by different people. How to choose? Then when we usually read, we should pay attention. In addition to paying attention to the publisher and author, we should also look at who the translator is. A good script requires a good actor, and a good book requires a good translator. The same principle applies. The words and sentences translated by good translators are more accurate, smooth and beautiful, which can bring children a better reading experience. For example, there are several translations of the book \”One Million Cats\” on the market. After comparison, I still prefer this version by Teacher Peng Yi. At present, well-known translators in the children\’s book industry include Peng Yi, Ren Rongrong, Ajia, Yang Lingling, Fang Suzhen, Ke Qianhua, Cao Wenxuan, Zhu Ziqiang, Wang Lin, Ma Ainong, Song Pei, Lin Jing, Lin Liang, Saruwatari Shizuko, Hao Guangcai, and Yu Zhiying etc. The fifth is to select picture books with relevant themes according to the children\’s interests. In the process of reading with the children, it is easy for us to know the children\’s preferences, and the communication with the children will be smoother. This is also the most important meaning of parent-child reading. After knowing the children\’s interests and preferences, we can choose picture books on related themes accordingly. For example, Rooney has been fond of cars since he was a child. After reading \”The Wheel\” in Skerry\’s Golden Childhood series, he became more interested in all kinds of cars, from various construction vehicles on construction sites to those running on the road. Cars, buses, subways and trains running on the tracks all attracted him deeply. So later we watched the \”Car Toot Toot\” series, \”Drive Off\” series, \”The Runaway Train\”, \”Fire Truck Jeep\”, \”Two Little Trains\”, \”Cable Car Maypole\”, \” \”The Most Complete and Coolest Vehicle\”, \”Construction Site\”, \”Do you recognize these cars?\” \”, \”The Slow Roller\”, \”The Busy Truck\”, \”The Polar Express\” and other storybooks and popular science books about cars. After reading the book, we would also observe real vehicles together and then draw them, so Rooney became more familiar with the shapes, structures and uses of various vehicles. Reading according to children\’s interests is the best way to lead children to in-depth learning. I have a friend who loves all kinds of food, and her daughter is also very fond of it, so they read a lot of picture books on food themes together, such as \”Around the World Making Apple Pie\”, \”Grandpa\’s Meatball Soup\”, \” \”Pumpkin Soup\”, \”Crow Bakery\”, etc. After reading the book, they started cooking delicious food together. The children naturally got to know a lot of ingredients and gradually mastered some simple recipes for food. Nowadays, there are more and more types of picture books. Almost every theme that children are interested in, such as transportation, food, dinosaurs, science, art, music, travel, etc., can be searched through Dangdang, JD.com, Baidu, Sogou, WeChat, etc. I found a large number of corresponding picture books, so I won’t list them all. In short, when choosing books for your children, you will basically not go wrong if you follow the above five principles. Once the book is selected, the child will become more and more interested in reading. When the children have a certain foundation in reading, and when they are older, teach them moreLet him go to libraries and bookstores and let him choose books by himself. Then we won’t have to worry so much, haha.