Parent-child reading is a warm reading concept, which must be based on the most basic, that is, a book must be enjoyed by both parents and children. If we consider this standard, it is obvious that many books can't meet this standard, or they can only be enjoyed by those of us who are engaged in the creation and criticism of children's literature. However, the Babe Bear series is well deserved. It skillfully combines artistry and practicality, and permeates parents' educational ideas into words and pictures. This is remarkable.
From the perspective of professional publishing of children's books, Babe Bear series is a set of picture books that parents and children read the most in China at present. Judging from the creation of children's literature, there are not many picture books with such a large scale and such an important influence in the world; From the perspective of children's book review, this set of books is different from all parent-child reading, because the story it describes happens to be what actually happens in children's lives. In other words, the stories in these 30 books are all events that children must experience during their growth, and in these experiences, parents must pay attention to and solve them. These problems have a great influence on children's personality, psychology, life, communication, spirit, feelings and so on, because we have reached such a * * * knowledge from the psychological sense, and childhood experiences have a vital impact on people's lives.
The surprise that Babe Bear series brings to us parents lies in how carefully the author observes and understands children. These little things, even ignored by us parents, slip away from our eyes, but are firmly grasped by the author. When we adults complain about the misfortunes of childhood, it can be completely attributed to the negligence of our parents when we were young, not paying attention to our little wishes, and even disdaining to take our little things to heart. Childhood, no matter how small, is also a big deal. This point has been supported by enough educational and psychological data. In other words, the trivial things described in Babe Bear series are definitely not trivial things in the ordinary sense, but major events closely related to the healthy growth of a child. It is a good helper for all parents, a good assistant. With a vivid metaphor, I even called the Babe Bear series a competent "nanny" for children.
"Babe Bear Series" covers a wide range of aspects and life contents, such as how to get along with brothers and sisters, parents and friends, how to cultivate good habits and how to correct their own shortcomings. In a higher sense, these are serious topics, such as self-adjustment, self-transcendence and self-improvement. This is a question of how to make your child have a mirror and a frame of reference, and how to cultivate the child into a child. A healthy person is particularly important in our time. What our parents ignore is precisely the education of children's daily behavior and their spiritual concern. More precisely, our parents can't carefully observe and analyze the psychological and educational significance and value contained in the trivial things in children's daily behavior. However, when we talk about psychology and pedagogy, we often sit still.
The reason why Babe Bear Series can be loved by parents and children is that the protagonists in the book, Brother Bear and Sister Bear, are two cute and naughty little guys with vivid images. The personality and psychological characteristics of boys and girls are very obvious. Their different and vivid performances in the same competition fully reflect the unique language, psychology, habits and behavior characteristics of children of this age. Their humorous life will make our parents smile and our children laugh happily. Moreover, the images of mother bear and father bear, as well as other characters in the story, are full and vivid. It can be said that this is also a detailed map for our parents to understand their children's life, behavior and psychology. With it, we can gain insight into the vast and subtle world of children. So this is a set of picture books with great practical value for parents and children to read. Meet Babe Bear Series/Wang Gan (Ph.D. in Anthropology, Yale University, founder of Little Oak Kindergarten)
Bear series was first known from American children's book software. At that time, I thought, it must be the kind of book that describes children's lives and educates children's behavior norms. The picture is ordinary and the content is boring. People of our time grew up in moral indoctrination, and they are not interested in such books, even if they are not disgusted. My child was only one year old at that time.
However, with the growth of children, I gradually found that sometimes it is good to use such books to educate the code of conduct. For the first time, we read that Berenstein bear got the cripple in the bear book. The plot is vivid. Brother and sister bear pestered their parents for toys. When their parents don't agree, they cry and even fall to the ground and kick! This kind of scene is a common thing in children's lives. The children were caught by the story at once, and listened to me a little nervously about how my father shouted, how my mother was angry, and how my grandparents supported me. Usually it looks very mature, and many older children who are indifferent to persuasion are fascinated this time, from funny to nervous, and finally it is gratifying to see the happy ending, and the true colors of childishness are exposed. I deliberately asked, "have you ever had a fight with gimmies?" Our eldest daughter faltered a little guiltily and said, "Oh, no,no." Another boy said innocently, "Sometimes, but not anymore." That's hilarious.
Sure enough, in the future, if you say to them, "What's wrong with gimmies?" They will stop insisting immediately.
I also fell in love with bear series books and bought many original bear books until I found that Xinjiang Publishing House had published thirty bear series bilingual books (that is, Babe Bear series books).
The authors of The Bear series, Stan and Jane (whose surname is Berenstein, or closer transliteration may be Berenstein), are an artist couple and parents of two boys. At first, they drew cartoons for adult newspapers and magazines. Later, when their children started reading picture books, they drew the first children's book "Hunting with Big Honey" for Dr. Seuss's famous picture book series, with the Xiong family as the protagonist. After the book was delivered, Dr. Seuss advised the novice couple not to draw bears any more, because there were many books about bears in the children's book world at that time, and some of them were written by famous artists. So they draw penguins. However, a month later, when they went to Dr. Seuss with penguins, Dr. Seuss told them that The Big Honey Hunt was very popular in the market, and they should continue to write bear series books! They think this series can write 5 to 10 books. Unexpectedly, more than 200 bear books have been published in the past 40 years, with sales exceeding 200 million copies.
There are several series of Xiong's books, as well as several original works I introduced before-up and down, in and out, etc. -belongs to the early steps of reading series. Babe Bear series published by Xinjiang Publishing House, including "Berenstein Bear Got Gimmies", etc., are selected from the beginner series, covering all kinds of problems that children often encounter: falling down in the mall and crying to buy things, watching TV endlessly, making the room messy, eating snacks all day, and so on. In view of these children's problems, parents can find books to read with their children and see how the bear family solves the problems.
This series of Babe Bear books also enriched the bilingual book market. Although English is attached to the back of the text, it seems inconvenient, but considering the price of the original, we must find ways to overcome this inconvenience! For most preschool children, this set of books is a bit difficult in English, but it can still be read to children. In another article, I also talked about how to gradually transition from Chinese to English.
After reading a few books for my son, I suddenly got a new understanding of Babe Bear series: this set of books can not only tell children stories about behavioral norms, but also serve as home teaching for parents to accompany them to grow up.
Parents in today's environment are facing many new problems and challenges, such as how to set limits for their children while giving them freedom. How to encourage children when they are left out in the cold? When children constantly complain about toys without friends, how should they be educated to be content? How to teach children how to manage money? The two authors themselves are parents. Many plots in the book are based on their own and children's life experiences, and there are many witticisms for our reference, as well as some "clever tricks" and even "bad tricks" for our reference. A friend of my mother said, I thought Americans were laissez-faire, but after watching the Babe Bear series, I found that Father and Mother Bear let their children deal with some problems by themselves, but they are still very strict with their children!
Among these books, my favorite is Pumpkin Competition, in which Father Bear and his children argue with neighbor farmer Ben to see who grows the biggest pumpkin. They not only watered the pumpkins, fertilized them, covered them with blankets, talked to them, but even sneaked into competitors' fields at night to "know ourselves and know ourselves" and were almost arrested as thieves. That's it. Their pumpkins are still in third place. After this experience, the children and their fathers realized that they should learn to be grateful instead of haggling over the outcome of the game. Everything has two sides. This truth, in the process of educating children, parents also have a deeper understanding. Therefore, as the title page of the book says: "Parents and children study together, and parents and children grow up together." Translator's words/Zhang Deqi
I am a foreign language worker and have translated millions of words from scientific and general English books. However, I often regret that none of these millions of words makes me proud and willing to keep them forever. Perhaps because of my remoteness, I have never had a chance to meet a good book that touches my heart.
However, in March last year, the editor of Xinjiang Youth Publishing House brought me a set of Babe Bear series published by Random House in the United States to see if it was worth publishing. As soon as I picked up the book, I was deeply attracted. Every story is full of fresh, interesting and exciting breath. Isn't that humorous and popular language, lively and vivid pictures and no didactic education what young parents in China need most? Personally, I often worry about how to correct my children's problems, such as eating snacks, not cleaning the room, and being afraid of going to the hospital. After reading this set of books, I feel that these problems of children are mentioned in the book and solved in the American way, which is very enlightening. In addition, if it is published in English and Chinese, children who learn English can also learn authentic American English. Isn't it killing two birds with one stone? So I recommended this book without hesitation, and accepted the translation of this book without hesitation on behalf of several translation colleagues.
In the process of translation, we deeply fell in love with the lovely Babe Bear family. When we discuss the revision together, we often can't help but imitate the rational mother bear and say, "Trust is broken, and we can't persist any longer." "Habits are things you don't want to do, and so are bad habits. Once you develop them, you can't change them. " Imitate father bear, who has a bad temper and sometimes makes mistakes like a child, saying, "I will order them to let you join that stupid club!" " If they don't let me, I'll tear the hut to pieces! "Imitate Brother Bear, who has a wide range of interests but just doesn't like doing homework, and say," Homework! "homework! Homework! There is homework in every class! There is homework every day! I can't fit it in my ears! " Imitate the lively and lovely little bear sister and say, "I will never play with Liz again!" " Love to brag, and overbearing! I won't play with her, I'd better play by myself! Play as you like, and never be angry with her again! ""it's so unfair! I was the first to come out when I played "Go to Jerusalem"! I don't like kissing games! I didn't get the prize of "nailing donkey's tail"! Fred got my new shirt wet! Besides, I don't want six children-I just want three! "In this way, we were completely intoxicated with these stories, unconsciously translated quickly, and completely forgot the hard work and fatigue of translation.
In the process of translation, we were particularly impressed by the superb creative skills of the original author, so we learned about the publication of the author and Babe Bear series abroad on the Internet: the authors are Stan and Jane, a couple. First, I draw cartoons for an army newspaper. Later, with two children, the couple felt more willing to make children's picture books. So on 1962, the first book of the couple's Babe Bear series, Honey Search, was officially published. The book was an immediate success. Since then, the couple have created 250 Babe Bear story books. According to the author, I chose' bears' as the main character because "they can stand, wear beautiful clothes and draw interesting pictures." The two sons who have grown up have also helped a lot for this series. Michael, the eldest son, draws illustrations for 25 Babe Bear series, and Leo, the youngest son, writes stories for Babe Bear series. The couple said that the story of the Babe Bear family originated from their own life experiences. In the past, these stories came from their own experiences and those of their two children. Now, these stories are closely related to their four grandchildren. From lying to fighting for a weekend in the wild to environmental protection, every story gives children a vivid and profound lesson about the problems they care about.
Everyone feels the same way. Seeing these foreign materials, I firmly believe that this series of books will be loved and widely accepted by parents and children in China. As one of the translators, I am glad that I finally have the opportunity to participate in the translation of such a good book. At the same time, I am also very happy to help readers read such a good book.