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Foreign authors, illustrators a hit with children
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WHEN it comes to books, foreign authors and illustrators seem to have the inside track on stirring the imaginations of Chinese children.
That was obvious at the 3rd annual China Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair, which ended yesterday in Pudong. Parents and children mostly ignored domestic books and flocked to foreign storytellers.
The three-day event offered more than 50,000 book titles from 300 publishers across the world. About 38,000 young readers and their parents and over 8,000 industry insiders attended the fair.
“My daughter likes books with bright colors and fanciful images,” said Zhang Ying, mother of a 9-year-old.
“Most Chinese books look too realistic. A leg looks like a real leg and a hand like a real hand. But it doesn’t have to be that way for children.”
“The ‘Berenstain Bears’ is my favorite,” Zhang’s daughter said, timidly peeking from behind her mother’s back to mention the US-published series of children’s books. “It’s about a family of bears.”
Indeed, children like make-believe, and what kids want matters to book publishers because China is the world’s second-largest market for children’s books, accounting for about 12 percent of global sales, according to Nelson Research Inc.
Last year, more than 80 percent of children’s books sold in the Chinese market came from abroad. Books by domestic authors and illustrators are low in proportion, and those that are on the market suffer low sales.
According to Chinese online bookseller Dangdang.com, “The Magic School Bus” tops the list of best-selling children’s books, followed by “The Young Children’s Encyclopedia,” and “Maps.” All are overseas publications.
“Maps,” produced by Poland’s Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielinski, sold more than 60,000 copies in the first 100 days after its launch in China, making this nation the biggest market for the book.
The picture book, printed on heavy matte paper, has been lauded for its sumptuous illustrations and witty information.
Many older people in China grew up reading children’s classics like “Deer of Nine Colors,” and “The Emperor and the Nightingale,” published in 1980s, while elder ones read storybooks with black and white illustrations and realistic-looking characters.
But that’s not what interests modern day children.
“To create a children’s book, you first have to understand what children want,” said Cao Junyan, a Taiwan book illustrator who attended the fair.
Add to that a flair for originality and a knack for entertaining.
“Local illustrators are good, but they tend to imitate what’s already popular on the market, like Japanese manga,” said Ikuko Ishikawa, head of Poplar Kid’s Republic bookstores in Shanghai, Beijing and Shengyang. “There’s a lack of originality in storytelling and style.”
Still, she added, “We have seen the emergence of a new breed of authors and illustrators in the past few years. The group is small but it is growing.”
The bookstore chain, attached to a publishing company, has produced a series of picture books by Chinese authors and illustrators, including the award-winning “Monster Mountain,” “The Morning Market of Lotus Town,” and the “Monkey King, Nice.”
The books have been well-received by critics but have yet to make much headway with young readers. Their sales tend to rely on directives from education authorities.
“I’ve never heard of these books,” admitted Shanghai first-grade teacher Ye Ya.
She showed Shanghai Daily her reading list for students this semester. It included Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales and “The Little Girl at the Window‚“ by Japanese author Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. None of the books on the list are from Chinese authors.
The gap that exists is not only between book creators and readers, but also between book creators and publishing houses.
“Publishers complain about a lack of local story illustrators, while illustrators complain about a lack of publishers willing to give them a chance,” Wang Rengchun, a manager with the fair organizer, told Shanghai Daily.
To try to find common ground, the fair organizers initiated the Golden Pinwheel Young Illustrators Competition this year. Designed to highlight the work of promising illustrators, it attracted 253 entrants from China and offshore.
Michal Suska from Poland and Zhou Jieyuan from China won the Grand Prize in the competition. Chinese illustrators Shou Tao and Wang Xiaoxiao collected silver.
Renowned illustrator A Hua, who sat on the competition jury, admitted that many publishing houses don’t treat illustrators and authors fairly.
“A publisher once cheated me out of some of the royalties I was due,” he said. “That’s why I resorted to self-publication. Now that self-publishing is becoming more popular in the industry, it’s even more difficult for publishers to find good illustrators.”
The creators of children’s books get about 8 percent royalties from sales. That might boil down to about 10,000 yuan (US$1,600) for a book requiring more than a year’s preparation.
Zhao Yufei, 25, who just graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York, wants to specialize in children’s books. Her graduation project, “Planet No. 1301,” was named as one of the Excellence Awards in the book fair competition. The book will be published next spring.
“The children’s book market in America is already very mature,” Zhao said. “But in China, it’s not, so I think I can make a difference here.”
But it won’t be easy. She said she has had to take part-time jobs, like commercial illustrations, to make ends meet while she works on children’s books.
“I know the road ahead will be difficult,” she said. “But want to do what I love, and that means books for children.”
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