June 6 is a festival exclusive to children, and in the past two years, it seems that it has also become the peak of consumption in the children's book market. Since entering May, various activities related to children's book promotions have been "crowded" into the attention of consumers. Cross-store full reduction, as low as one discount... Hundreds of publishing houses are waiting for the show, showing their signboards and playing the lowest prices, attracting consumers to buy in the pit.

The discount is large and the variety of goods is large, which should be a "happy event" for consumers. However, more and more parents feel "strange": surrounded by the recommendations of various reading bloggers, "how to choose books for their children" has become a difficult problem, which is very headache.

The quality of children's books on the market is mixed, and there seem to be more and more "strange children's books"?

Yangtze Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter Sun Qingyun

1 Humanities, teaching aids, science fiction... What kind of children's books are most popular with consumers?

When it was still half a month before June Day, Li Ran, the mother of an 8-year-old child, had already begun to prepare a "book purchase list" for the young readers at home, picking and choosing, or picking and choosing, and finally, she decided to place orders in turn according to the ranking data given by the e-commerce platform and buy the new works that her children did not read...

According to the report "Children's Reading Observation from the Perspective of National Reading", in 2018, the total number of children's books published in China has ranked first in the world, and children's book publishing has become a "leading force" driving the sustainable development of China's publishing industry, full of vitality and great potential.

The fast-growing industry soon gave birth to market segments, which also attracted practitioners to "enter the game". As of last year, there are now nearly 580 of the more than 550 publishing houses in China, which are involved in the publishing business of children's books. With the blessing of the market operation mechanism, the types of children's books are developing rapidly towards diversification, and there are different forms such as popular science, science fiction, humanities, and biography.

In the highly competitive children's book market, what kind of books are most popular with consumers? On this year's World Book Day, the JD Consumer and Industry Development Research Institute jointly released the "2023 Online Book Consumption Observation", which shows that among the books purchased online, the sales of teaching aids are higher.

In the field of interesting reading, foreign children's books have an absolute advantage, for example, in the 2022 Dangdang Children's Book Bestseller TOP, seven books shortlisted are foreign classics.

Only 3 domestic books were selected, namely "History of Youth Reading" launched by Qingdao Publishing House, "Youth Reading the Classic of Mountains and Seas" written by popular science writer Liu Xingshi, and "The Classic of Mountains and Seas that Children Can Read" published by Beijing Institute of Technology Press.

Coincidentally, these three books have the attributes of traditional cultural popularization and education. In this regard, Chen Wenying, deputy editor-in-chief of Jiangsu Children's Publishing House, told reporters that children's books on traditional cultural themes have always been highly respected by parents and loved by young readers, "We have a children's book called "Chinese Classics", which has been in the company for more than ten years, and is constantly revising and printing. ”

After stepping into 2023, with the rise of science fiction popularity, some science fiction popular science children's books are "breaking the circle". In May this year, when the net children's book bestseller list, the juvenile science fiction series edited by Hugo Award winner and author of "The Three-Body Problem" Liu Cixin occupied the third good place on the list. The "Encyclopedia of Natural History" launched by the British company DK also broke into the top five of the hot list.

In addition, the blessing of famous masterpieces is also an important force to promote a children's book work out of the circle. Chen Wenying believes that from the current book publishing market, parents buy books for their children, mainly depending on who the author of the book is, Huang Beijia, Cao Wenxuan and other writers' works, are still recognized by the market, "time-tested classics, not easy to become outdated." ”

2 There are endless types of children's books, but parents complain that they can't buy good-looking "children's books"

The children's book consumer market is booming, but in the past two years, the problem of "toxic children's books" has also attracted much attention and concern from parents. Type the keyword "child poison" into the search engine and you can search for hundreds of news articles about "parents complaining about children's books".

Among them, the more controversial type of children's books is children's picture books. Children's picture books were born in Europe in the 17th century, and in the thirties of the twentieth century, they flowed to the United States, and later to the book consumption market in Asian countries. Because it is regarded as a "children's enlightenment education" book, it is very popular with parents.

Li Ran, a post-90s mother, told reporters that since her child was 1 year old, she has selectively selected and purchased picture books, and educated her children to recognize pictures and distinguish colors through picture books. But the biggest headache for her is not the price, but the quality of the book, "It is especially difficult to buy a book that children are interested in." ”

Chen Wenying, deputy editor-in-chief of Jiangsu Children's Publishing House, found that after the development and growth of the children's picture book market, it also sent some practitioners who exploited loopholes to "take advantage of the opportunity": participate in competition at low prices, only seek quantity and not quality, and in the long run, bad money drives out good money, leaving "hidden dangers" to the children's book industry.

Children's writer Qi Zhi holds a similar view. He believes that at present, it is not the prosperity of children's literature, but the prosperity of children's literature publishing (market), and "there are still very few really excellent works that meet the needs of children." ”

"China's children's book consumption market is large and the demand is also very large, but the speed of our creation is far from keeping up with the speed of writing and the needs of our children." Qi Zhi said that on the one hand, the high demand of readers, on the other hand, the lack of truly professional children's literature writers, inconsistencies have led to a mixed market.

3 Surrounded by a large number of children's books, what kind of children's literature do we need?

At the end of last December, the Provincial Writers' Association organized a seminar entitled "What kind of children's literature do we need". Qi Zhi spoke at the meeting and mentioned: Children's literature itself has become ugly, and the reason is because of the lack of stories, and stories need plots, and plots need verbs.

As a children's literature writer, he has always believed in the principle of creation: without life, without observation, there is no good story, no good plot.

He said that the difficulty of children's book writing is actually not innovation, but in keeping truth and integrity, the premise is to understand children, "For us writers, in a year, you really go to school a few times, really contact with children a few times, if you don't enter the classroom, how to write children's well, you can only sit in your own home to compile." ”

Huang Beijia, who wrote classic children's literature works such as "I Want to Be a Good Child" and "Today I am a Flag Raiser", emphasizes responsibility. Previously, in an exclusive interview with the Yangtze Evening News film crew, she described her career to reporters: "Writing children's literature is like dancing on the tip of a knife." ”

In her opinion, many children will unconsciously regard children's writers as mentors in their lives, regard the world created in their works as a real world, and believe in all possibilities. This is the conundrum faced by children's writers: the work cannot be too simple, but it cannot be too complex; Neither can they be happy and boundless, nor can they be disappointed in life and the world, lose faith prematurely, and fall into terror.

To the question "What makes a good children's book?" "The discussion may never end, it may vary from person to person, and no one can convince anyone. But parents who are surrounded by a large number of children's books and stand behind their children are the best "gatekeepers" to help them distinguish right from wrong and achieve their own healthy growth.

Every year from June Day, Qi Zhi receives an invitation to "recommend children's books to children". He always suggests that with so many children's books on the market now, the key is choice, "Parents need to learn to choose, use their own money to vote." ”