Foreign Children's Literature Increasingly Favored by Chinese Consumers
By admin on 2015-01-30

A Chinese netizen calling himself "Bone of Snail" was pleasantly surprised when he cracked open a story from the "Chicks and Little Hens" series of children's books that he purchased for his unborn child.

"I read the stories aloud every night. The plots are so lively that I can't help using body language to describe them. Although my baby can't see my show yet, my wife enjoys it a lot," the future father said in a comment left on Dangdang, a popular online retailer.

The book series, written by Christian Jolibois and illustrated by Christian Heinrich, tells a tale of an adventurous hen and her chicks.

The series boasts creativity and innovation that Chinese children's literature generally lacks, according to "Bone of Snail."

The Chinese edition of the series, which arrived in China in 2006, ranked third on Dangdang's 2010 bestseller list.

In May of this year, the series ranked first on the site's monthly children's literature bestseller list, followed by nine other works written by foreign authors from the United States, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands and Japan.

"I noticed that my granddaughter always gravitated toward booths featuring foreign booksellers," said Sun Yamei, who recently took her six-year-old granddaughter to a book fair held in the city of Harbin in northeastern China's Heilongjiang Province.

Sun planned to buy the girl some books as a gift for International Children's Day, which fell on June 1.

"Foreign writers of children's literature know their readers well," Sun said.

Analysts say a lack of creativity has put Chinese children's literature writers at a disadvantage when competing with their foreign counterparts in the Chinese market.

Many of China's most well-received children's books, including works adapted from China's literary classics and collections of ancient poems, have been republished in recent years.

"These books appear to be much fancier, and some even have gilded covers. However, there is nothing new in terms of content," according to a publishing industry insider who requested anonymity.

"I was bored by similar plots in Chinese storybooks. Also, I found that some Chinese stories preach values too much. These values are expressed less specifically in foreign books," said Han Tianyu, a fourth-grader from the No. 2 Primary School of Hunnan district in Shenyang, the capital city of Liaoning Province.

As a huge fan of the classic adventure novel "Around the World in Eighty Days" by French writer Jules Verne, Han also favors the book series "Pipi Lu and Lu Xixi" written by Zheng Yuanjie, an unorthodox Chinese writer who has previously lashed out at the country's exam-oriented schooling.

"In Zheng's books, not every story has a predictable 'happy' ending. In addition, he often mentions students' mischief in the stories, and that is more realistic," He said.

Han's school has a library with more than 30,000 books, and its 800 students are required to spend half an hour reading in the library every day.

"When purchasing books, we find that children's books written by Chinese authors are rarely accepted by our students," said the school's headmaster, Cong Lianfang.

Calls for more creativity and innovation in Chinese children's literature have been mounting in recent years.

However, a poor understanding of the minds of children, as well as a lack of respect for intellectual property rights, have impeded the development of Chinese children's literature, said Qu Xiaoxia, general manager of the Beijing Qifashiji Publications Co., Ltd.

Cong suggested that writers of Chinese children's literature seek inspiration from children and conduct surveys among their younger readers.