"The Kingdom of Xintia": a picture book nominated for the Andersen Award, giving children the dual influence of words and paintings
If your best friend has been out for a long time and has not returned, you really want to find him. However, you are born to be afraid of going out and only like to live quietly in a familiar environment. You are instinctively attracted to the unfamiliar world. Fear, what to do?
You finally mustered up the courage to embark on a journey to find your friends, but when you walk in the forest, you find that the trees have eyes and keep moving. What should you do? Will he be so scared that he runs away?
In the picture book "The Land of Sinthia: The Search for the Red Magician" by illustrator Anne Brouillard, who was shortlisted for the International Andersen Award and the Lindgren Memorial Award, the black dog Kirioke meets It has reached such a scene, but for his friend the red magician Vali Jiezu, accompanied by the human girl Veronica, it bravely stepped out of the comfort zone and walked into the mysterious forest...< /p>
Anne Brouillard is a Belgian illustrator. Her works have been shortlisted for many awards: Bologna Children’s Book Prize, Bratislava International Illustration Biennial, Montreuil Children’s Book Fair in France, French Witches Award... In 2020, she was nominated for the prestigious international awards Lindgren Memorial Award and the International Hans Christian Andersen Award.
"The Kingdom of Sintia: Searching for the Red Magician" is a mysterious adventure-themed picture book that she drew based on her childhood imagination and combined with what she saw and heard in Sweden during her childhood. The whole story has an atmosphere. It's so touching that you can't take your eyes away.
Whether it is the fantasy world created by the text, or the beautiful scenery shown by the illustrations, especially the rigorous maps and newspaper layouts and other details, it suddenly makes people feel that Xinthia is a real existence and fascinating place.
This is a story that makes people want to read it. The beginning of the chapter is full of suspense. On a rainy day, the black dog Kirioke is sitting in a warm room drinking coffee. It seems that the years are peaceful, but he is actually restless. From time to time, he listens to what seems to be happening outside. No footsteps.
It turned out that his good friend Vali Jiezu had not heard from him for several months. Kirioke was worried. After waiting and waiting, he finally couldn't sit still and got up to look for them** *His friend Veronica helped him make up his mind, where he heard more strange news:
There were strangers coming in and out of the nearby laboratory, and the weather had been unusually wet and rainy in the past few days. What appears to be Vali Jiezu's caravan is parked on Hay Ridge...
So, where did the red magician Vali Jiezu go?
Veronica immediately decided that she should go out to look for Vali Jiezu. She did what she said, found a map to plan the route, and made a list of items to bring...
Compared with her super execution ability, Qilioke is much more hesitant. He has never traveled far and likes to live a peaceful life in familiar places. He is full of fear of adventure in the big forest, but in the end he is afraid of adventure in the big forest. Despite his friend's concerns, he decided to set off with Veronica.
In the forest, the trees with eyes made people feel scared, and the wet ground made his paws wet and cold, but Chirioc never thought of retreating. His dedication to friendship is touching.
This story makes people feel anxious from the beginning, and they always feel vaguely that there is an ominous omen. But when you read it to the end, you find that it is a false alarm, and there are no thrilling and cruel moments. Although the harmful character is the villain, the whole struggle process went smoothly and quickly.
On the contrary, along the way, I met beautiful scenery, warm cabins and enthusiastic homeowners, twins who pushed a car full of autobiographies, and fliers who stirred the clouds with a butter churn to help them fly... …
The forest is not as eerie and scary as imagined, but rich and touching. Even Chirioc couldn’t help but sigh: After all, it was a wonderful trip.
The first thing that attracted me to this book was the illustration on the cover. The open water and the rugged old trees in the water gave me a sense of age and long history, which was inexplicable. Peace of mind, whether it's the pink clouds in the sky or the golden light of the sun's afterglow shining on the treetops and tents, they are all so vivid. The overall color matching is high-end, harmonious and natural, giving people a fairyland-like beauty. You can't help but look at it. Want to step right into the painting and enjoy Veronica and Kirioke's tent camping.
When you turn to the inner pages, it is even more breathtaking, because the art forms in the illustrations are flexible and diverse, including rigorous maps, comic-like storyboards, aerial views, and cross-sections. It's very enjoyable to watch according to the needs of the plot.
I especially like Anne Brouillard's illustrations. In addition to the flexible and diverse painting forms, the tones used are also very gentle and harmonious. The whole picture looks clean and thorough, with a broad field of vision and a particularly comfortable look and feel.
The use of sunlight is particularly outstanding. No matter how dark and humid the forest is, you can always see details illuminated by light in casual corners. This is also very different from her entire narrative style. To a high degree of consistency, Qilioke felt uneasy during the adventure, but he moved forward resolutely for the friendship he cherished in his heart, and gained a different kind of wonderful experience.
In the past few years, thanks to buying picture books for my two children, I have read a lot of exquisite illustrations. I increasingly feel that high-quality illustrations are the soul of children’s books. Beautiful pictures that complement the text can make people My mind is rippling like a spring breeze.
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Xinthia is a fictional country, but as we read, we often forget this and unknowingly yearn for the country of Xinthia , it seems that it is somewhere in this world, and I want to take a look.
This is inseparable from the fact that the author has created a complete world system and strictly prohibited details. First of all, at the beginning, there is a map of the entire Sinthia region, which consists of 11 countries. The protagonists in this story live in the Quiet Lake Country in the east, and the moss babies they rescued were brought from the evil spirit in the east. They were abducted from the moist country in the northeast.
When the protagonist is planning the route, he zooms in on a local map in time. Roads, rivers, railway tunnels, and even boundary lines and contours are all clearly marked, making people suddenly feel like they are looking at a map. Real map.
In the cabin, the owner brought back a newspaper, including weather forecast, news and current affairs, and daily sentence columns. This kind of decent layout also makes people feel very real. .
Although Xintia is a fictional place, the author has created a complete world for it, and equipped it with a rigorous map, which makes it not only the background of the story, but also An abstract symbol, but a group of people in a real-life place.
George Martin said in "Game of Thrones": "Those who read can experience a thousand lives, but those who do not read can only live once." Indeed, reading can greatly enrich our life experience. Especially a fantasy and mysterious foreign country like the one portrayed in "The Kingdom of Xintia: Searching for the Red Magician" will leave a deep impression on children.
Anne Brouillard was inspired to write this book from what she saw in her childhood.
And who can tell what kind of life story a child who enriched his childhood with this book will take this opportunity to write a few years later?
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