While playing hide-and-seek, Yong was never found with the help of a little girl. His playmates called him the “King of Hide and Seek”. But when his playmates went to school, Yong could only stay at home alone, not even being able to tell a one-dollar coin from a ten-dollar coin. On the day father came to pick up Yong, the King of Hide and Seek disappeared! Where could he be? Can anybody find him?
The 1st Picture Book Award Winning Books
Synopsis
Book Details
- Author:Zhang Xiaoling
- Illustrator:Pan Jian
- Publisher: Tomorrow Publishing House
- ISBN:978-7-5332-5815-3
- Age Range:3-8
- Publication Date:10-2008
Judge's comment
With brilliant literal expression, this picture book has touching soul to appeal to, summon, and lead readers to a soul-cleansing feast. Chang successfully turns personal childhood experience into a beautiful work of literature. She grasps children's perspective, thoughts and language, and builds a fresh, vivid, and vibrant child figure that leads readers into the childhood of universal values.
The story begins with friendship and develops with children's play. It effortlessly presents the plight of the main character. Instead of being sensational, pretentious, or preachy, the plot development fluently shows the spiritual strengths in beauty and goodwill out of children's human nature, and thus produces dramatic fun and tension. The literary structure and layout are well-tailored, and the text itself presents the art of colloquialism. It is concise, elegant, lyrical and witty.
The author creates a stage truly for children. The dialogue, movement and thoughts are signposts of real childhood life without adults' misplaced inner projection in some other nostalgic childhood writing. This is why it's commendable. In the world of childhood, there are joy, sadness, and many indescribable feelings. Children with or without fortune should have the dignity and hope.
Sarah Chien-Hua Ko (Taiwan Children's literature critic)
Winners
Zhang Xiaoling was born in Qidong, Jiangsu in 1977, and graduated from Nanjing University with a Master's Degree in Art. She has written columns for Youth Literature 《少年文藝》, The Bulletin for Illustrated Children's Stories 《兒童故事畫報》 and Oriental Baby 《東方娃娃》. She has also written several novels and is now working in the Jiangsu Children's Publishing House (江蘇少年兒童出版社).
Pan Jian, a children's picture book illustrator, was born in 1961 and graduated from the Department of Arts at Nanjing Normal University in 1984. She has been a teacher for 22 years and has won several top national awards for children's picture books. She currently regularly writes a column in “Teacher Pan's Art Class”, which appears in several young children's magazines. She is also the author of several children's arts education books.