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On the Internet, where the yin and yang studies are rampant, when the content of a work is simple and rude in logic, there is a new term-“children’s literature”. It can be seen that in people’s eyes, today’s children’s literature represents to some extent the beauty and romance of childishness, hypocrisy, falsehood.

But if time goes back twenty years, “children’s literature” may hardly be reduced to a negative adjective. Most children’s books of that era were bold and involved any subject matter.

In the past two years, everyone has missed a publication called “Children’s Literature”. Almost everyone can say a few impressive articles.

So why is a magazine that looks mediocre so many generations remember it?

1. Yeah, “Children’s Literature”

The “Children’s Literature” from 1997 to 2008 can be summarized in one word: Wild.

The large scale of “Children” at that time is unimaginable today, and there is no shortage of novel themes and pioneering perspectives in the journal. It is not so much a story written for children, but rather a critique of reality in the eyes of children.

▲”A ​​Teardrop Breaks Two Petals” is a novel serialized on “Children”, which tells the growth process of a girl whose parents are divorced. One of the most frequently mentioned works by netizens.

The youth recorded in “Children” refuses to be pretentious and sensational, and uses concise text to describe the real troubles of the teenager. It is even cruel.

We found out and read some impressive articles mentioned by netizens:

“Blue Silk Cut” describes the process of a girl who did not want to obey the request of teachers and parents to cut her bangs, but finally had to give in.

“Run, Run desperately” is a story about the protagonist’s friend who was stimulated by an unreasonable college entrance examination bonus mechanism and entered a mental hospital, but tried to escape from the college entrance examination room on the day of the college entrance examination.

The protagonist of “Flying Like a Pig” is a mentally handicapped boy whose parents died and was bullied by children of the same age. He adopted a pig and regarded it as his only friend, but the factory leader wanted to kill Drop the pig and eat meat. Finally, the little pig failed to jump out of the high wall and died under the butcher knife. The boy also failed to escape from the factory compound and jumped off the chimney.go with.

This is the youth shown in “Children” back then. Talking about the collective persecution of self-personality, it will criticize the unreasonable test-oriented education, and it will also show the plight of children at the bottom. Compared with the romance of “Youth Tragedy Literature”, “Children” shows more real pain from reality.

▲ “Booming Memories” is composed of 12 reportages published in “Children” in 1998 and 2004. In the past seven years, the author interviewed dozens of young people in their early twenties, and asked them to recall the most memorable and deafening real event in their middle school years, and how the experience of this event changed their lives.

Besides being truthful, the perspective of the novel published in “Children” is also avant-garde.

When computers had just become popular and parents still regarded games as scourges, “Children” had published online novels based on games such as “World of Warcraft” and “Wonderland”, and discussed philosophical issues based on the game’s world view.

▲ “Children” once published Liu Cixin’s short story “Round Soap Bubbles” in the science fiction column

While people are immersed in the moving stories reported by the media, “Children”Du looked at this kind of report and published a special story:

There was a little boy when his life was in danger, his teacher gave up his child and rescued him. After the media reported the incident, the little boy and the teacher were frequently invited to participate in various programs, telling the story over and over again. As a result, the boy could not stand the pressure from the outside world and the teacher, and became rebellious.

At the end of the story, the boy sent a letter to the teacher, asking: Have you ever eaten flies?

These stories told from a child’s perspective, although not so pleasant and easy, they truly narrate what the child’s troubles are, telling how the child will think of a thing, not the romantic imagination entrusted by adults, but the face For this complex world, it is just a variety of things that may happen when a child grows up.

Understanding children, thinking from the perspective of children, is it not a kind of protection for them.

2. Just do the most rigid literature

“Children’s Literature”, which was born in 1963, can be said to be a condensed history of contemporary Chinese literature.

At that time, three years of natural disasters had just come to an end. The society was full of waste and lack of material and spirituality. There was only one publication for children in the book market, “Youth Literature” from Shanghai, and children urgently needed themselves. Reading. Under such circumstances, the first issue of “Children’s Literature” was born.

▲The cover of the first issue of “Children” is Huang Yongyu’s work

From the editorial board, you can see that the lineup of “Children” was extremely luxurious. It was composed of Ye Shengtao, Hua Junwu, Jin Jin and others. Elite.

In this way, I devoted myself to creating “Children,” and the first issue sold 300,000 copies. The enthusiasm of readers gave the editorial board more confidence. Unfortunately, three years later, the Cultural Revolution began, and the publication of “Children” was forced to suspend publication for ten years.

By the end of the Cultural Revolution, ten years of empty windows of national spirit allowed literature to explode in the 1980s, and children’s literature as a subcategory is no exception. At that time, magazines were the most important platform for carrying literature, and “Children’s Literature” became one of the trendsetters.

Although the “Children” of this period is excellent, it is still not “wild”. The bold and sharp “Children” that everyone remembers was actually born in 1997.

In the 1990s, the wave of commercialization swept across the mainland, the literary boom faded, “Children” was not spared, and sales fell from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. At that time, the editorial department of “Children” also conducted a survey and found that the pure literary publications in all provinces were almost exhausted.

At this time, Xu Dexia, the editor-in-chief of “Children”, made a bold decision, “You don’t make (pure literature), I did the opposite, I have to do this pure and pure literature.”

So in 1997, a sentence was added to the back cover of “Children”: This magazine is suitable for citizens aged 9 to 99.

Although it is a book for children, the literary nature of “Children” does not lose any publication. It has published serious documentary literature, published soft science fiction novels with wide-open minds, even when youth pain literature and online novels were not popular, it published Rao Xueman’s short stories and the juvenile version of “Wolf Totem” “.

In the inaugural issue of “Children”, the well-known children’s writer Jin Jin described the ideal appearance of this publication: it can have towering ancient trees as well as exotic flowers and plants. The “Children” from 1997 to 2008 is the wilderness where everything can grow freely.

Three. Will children who grow up watching “Children’s Wen” go bad?

2008 was a year of turning point for “Children” recognized by netizens. Since then, “Children” has been continuously revised, which has weakened its seriousness, absorbed a large amount of overseas literature, and added children’s editions, juvenile editions, selected editions, fashion editions, and beautiful painting editions according to different ages.

At this time, “Children” is no longer a publication that can be read from 9 to 99 years old. Some people complain about it. It is getting younger and younger, is now 9 or 99 years old. Publications that will be read.

One ​​Way Street Bookstore (ID: onewaystreet2013), author: AP