In January this year, the 2024 Beijing Book Order Fair was held at the China International Exhibition Center. The Xia Haijiao family from Beishuiwan Kindergarten in Jiading District brought an original picture book "Noisy in the Small Courtyard" to the most important publishing and distribution industry in the country. Information exchange platform and national reading promotion platform.
Xia Haijiao's job is the company's product manager, and painting is his hobby. Since his daughter Xiang Xiang was three years old, Xia Haijiao has successively created more than 30 picture books inspired by daily life and published them on online media. He said that the original intention of making picture books was to cultivate his daughter's language skills. "When she was a child, her language development was slower than that of her peers, so I tried to use the method of reading picture books to help her learn to speak." Xia Haijiao said that she really likes reading picture books when she thinks about it. , telling everyone familiar stories can make her more confident.
"Later, her language skills got better and better, and I began to add some more profound things to the picture books, such as emphasizing the concept of time, cultivating habits, exploring nature, learning ancient poetry, etc." He said, "Noisy in the Small Courtyard" "" is a periodic summary work jointly created by him and his daughter.
Xia Haijiao and her daughter Xia Wuxiang
On a vacation, Xia Haijiao and her daughter came to the countryside of northern Jiangsu to play. They had a great time chasing ducks, feeding geese to eat vegetable leaves, and playing with the old loofah on the roof. "So I created the nursery rhyme "Noisy in the Small Yard". I thought about it and used my own unique perspective to provide some interesting language." Xia Haijiao said that the nursery rhyme specially added "interactive stories" about fruits and vegetables, combined with rhythm. The words and sentences make it catchy for children to read.
"Xiangxiang participated in the creation of picture books in all aspects, including text, scenes, images and colors. She often looked at my drawings and then took the initiative to give her own suggestions. Sometimes she would also do it herself. She also recorded the electronic version of the picture book herself. "Complete." When talking about how the child went deep into the creative process, Xia Haijiao said, "When I encounter a bottleneck, I will ask her to act out the movements and expressions of the fruit in the story. I will immediately draw a sketch and then adjust it. Cartoon state. Children's movements are always full of natural childishness, which allows me to quickly find inspiration. "
Inside page of "Noisy in the Small Courtyard"
In the creation of picture books, Xia Haijiao is based on the human and natural environment. Animals, plants and human images, but weakening this image, "I used some detailed descriptions to show the relationship between these fruits and animals. For example, the duck quacked, did it find something? Little Orange was sad At that time, in addition to the comfort of my friends, there was also the back of Ginkgo; and in the middle of the ginkgo fruits and leaves, two birds flew by. Their mouths were still red, as if they had just eaten something and had not had time to wipe it. Mouths, where do they come from... There are many such details in the picture waiting for us to discover, and you can also use your imagination to supplement the stories between these fruits and animals."
Xia Haijiao said frankly that the most difficult part of creation is every step. Character design for planting animals and plants, "For example, in the story, the scene where 'Little Ginger is anxious to climb out, and Old Ginger grabs him' must not only let people know at a glance that this is ginger, but also reflect the ginger's eagerness to climb up. In order to distinguish between old ginger and young ginger, the image of ginger has to be carefully considered and adjusted dozens of times. Now, every child who sees ginger will be deeply impressed by this image."
mentioned. Xia Haijiao couldn't hide his excitement about this publication: "The creation process of the picture book from writing to painting lasted three years, during which it was inseparable from the virtuous interactive cycle of family education and school education." It is understood that Beishuiwan Kindergarten in Jiading District is Xia Haijiao Families provide display space so that their works can be displayed to children in the kindergarten in multiple dimensions through audio-visual, physical picture books, and interactive reading. Xia Haijiao said that in the future, he will continue to work with schools to jointly educate, from telling his own stories to allowing more people to participate in the creation of picture book stories.
Source: Shanghai Jiading
