"What would you trade for my butterfly": Let children dream the most beautiful dreams at an imaginative age.

Primitive tribe A lives in coastal areas. People are good at fishing and eat seafood every day. One day, however, they wanted to try beef and mutton for a change, so they thought of primitive tribe B.

Primitive tribe B lives in the vast Yuan Ye, where people are best at animal husbandry and eat beef and mutton all day long. Suddenly one day they were tired of eating, and they were thinking about where to get some seafood to eat, so the primitive tribe A came to us.

So they exchanged their cattle and sheep for each other's fish and shrimp, and each got his place.

Exchange is the most important means of transaction in primitive society.

The essence of exchange is to meet one's own needs, and people's needs are ever-changing, which makes exchange itself more interesting.

Englishman alastair Reid and American Bob Gill attracted interest at the same time. They hit it off and decided to show it in the form of a picture book, so they jointly created "What do you want to exchange for my butterfly?" 》

This book is very simple, there is almost no story, only a simple plot:

A man covered his hands and asked, "I have a butterfly in my hand." What are you willing to pay for this? "

Another person began to think of ways to replace the wishing bones with flags, straw hats, green umbrellas, seahorses, boats in bottles, candy machines, guns, hot air balloons, towers, troops, towns, forests and their own islands.

Until finally, he found: at first, I only had a butterfly in my hand, and now I have everything!

The illustrator of this book is American Bob Gill, who is a world-famous illustrator and designer. When drawing illustrations for this book, he only chose four colors: black to outline lines, red and yellow to create a strong contrast, and green to spread a large area.

These bright colors are very exaggerated, just like a monster with claws, desperately trying to let you see more. At the same time, the lively and happy atmosphere instantly rendered by jumping colors is very easy to infect children and make their thoughts jump with the picture.

When sketching the outline with black lines, Bob Gill fully demonstrated his childlike and casual style. He doesn't care to embody every detail, but his brushwork is thick and thin, seemingly casual and simple and free-and-easy, as if it were painted by a child, with a childlike innocence.

Picasso once said, "I can paint like a master in a short time, but I must learn to paint like a child all my life."

In painting, the masters try their best to remain pure. Children who should be naive, however, began to learn formal painting skills, structure, brushwork and color application from an early age, and unconsciously bound their natural imagination and creativity with these adult rules and frameworks.

However, if we fully respect the child's nature and let him draw by himself, parents are worried that the child will neither learn anything, nor draw famous works, wasting time and losing at the starting line.

I don't want my children to grow wildly, and I don't want to tie their imagination with rules too early. In fact, this ambivalence can be well solved with picture books, because good picture books can skillfully integrate art, stories and education, so that children can establish their own aesthetics and cognition through repeated reading.

For example, "What did you exchange for my butterfly? The first thing that attracts children most is its rich and exciting colors. It doesn't teach children what is contrast color, what is cold and warm color and what is three primary colors. Instead, let children feel the emotions expressed by colors and help them build their own sensory world.

Alastair Reid wrote this story. He is a Scottish poet and has published more than forty books of poetry, translations and travel notes. In his works, "What would you exchange for my butterfly" is also full of poetry.

"I will exchange, exchange, exchange,

Until finally I had everything. "

"Think about it!

At first, it was in my hand.

There is only one butterfly.

Now, I have it.

Everything! "

The story started just to get butterflies, but in constant exchange, he got a flag, a hat, a lion, a castle, a hot air balloon, a town, an army and even an island. Although these things disappeared with the exchange, the experience of connecting them in series enriched his heart, just like the old saying: "I don't care about eternity, I only care about having it."

People who are easily satisfied are also more likely to feel happy.

Perhaps children can't understand the deep meaning of Reid's works, but the satisfaction brought by the story will infect children and lead them to think about the little things in life: do you have to buy toys home if you want them? Do you want to try to exchange fun? What am I willing to exchange for my friend Xiaoming's water gun?

A picture book is a successful picture book if it can make children relate stories to life and reflect on their own behavior. What do you want to exchange for my butterfly? Reid did it in a poetic way.

This book is very suitable for parent-child reading, because the uncertainty of communication itself creates endless fun for reading, which can turn the parent-child class into an interesting game, which not only reduces the burden on parents, but also gives the main body of reading to children.

In fact, the game started from the cover: since the book is called "What would you trade for my butterfly?" Why is a hot air balloon painted on the cover instead of a butterfly?

"Hot air balloon for butterfly!"

"This hot air balloon is a butterfly. It's a butterfly. "

"The butterfly is sitting in a hot air balloon!"

All kinds of answers will come out of the cute little head, and the story will slowly unfold in speculation and thinking.

Then, when we open the book, the first thing we see is the front ring lining. Generally, books are carefully designed in front of the ring lining, or echo the content of the book, or simply the prelude to the story. However, the front and back rings of this book are completely blank, which makes people feel a little confused. Is it because the designer forgot such an important thing?

As I said before, this book is not like a story, but more like a plot that has been cut from beginning to end. Are these blanks carefully designed by the author? It is intended to give the initiative of the story to children, so that they can create freely on white paper and write their favorite exchanges.

Every communication seems to be an open question with no standard answer. We are in no hurry to turn to the next page and let the children put forward their own ideas first. When children see the contents of the next page, they will compare the author's ideas with their own, or be surprised, or elated, or determined to be bigger than the author's next page, so a quiet competition is held between the author and the children to see who has changed something more interesting.

In 2005, kyle macdonald used the Internet to replace a red paper clip with a fish-shaped pen, and then the pen was replaced with a small artwork and a car ... In this way, MacDonald finally got a beautiful two-story apartment without spending a penny! Many people will find it incredible. But it turns out that as long as you dare to think, there is nothing you can't do. What do you want to exchange for my butterfly? It is better to start with this book, open children's imagination, let them fly their hearts, and let them boldly dream the best dreams at the age of imagination.