What I want to say at the beginning of the passage is that writing, which I've never been good at, is really a difficult thing for me, and 007, obviously, is such a big challenge in my life recently. However, since I've started, there's no reason to stop. And I know, with so many compinions, I'm not persisting alone.
In the last three passages, I looked back into the history of classical Chinese literature, which reminds me that probably I could read and review some foreign literary works. Limited by my shameful English level, I decide to start from one of the simplest.
Now I'm going to write several short passages to review, in my own words, the book——the Little Prince, written by Atonie de Saunt-Exupery from France. How many is "several"? Yeah, you get the point. I can only say "It depends". I'm not sure yet. If time permits, I hope it can be finished in three or four passages. And each one will include two parts，the mind map and the quotations with my reflections. Let's get down to the business. The following is Passage One.
PART ONE
Mind Map
PART TWO
Qotations and Reflectins
In the first chapter, the narrator, by discussing two of his childhood pictures，introduces the idea that perception of the same item varies from person to person and how sharp the distinction of imagination between kids and adults.
“Frighten? Why should anyone be frightened by a hat?”
At the age of six, the narrator saw a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of digesting an elephant like this:
He wondered how could an boa constrictor digest an elephant. Then a horrible picture came into the six-year-old boy's mind and he succeeded in drawing it down like this:
However, all adults thought the boy's frightening picture was supposed to be a hat.
They answered:"frighten? Why should anyone be frightened by a hat?"
Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
The boy had no choice but to try again to draw the inside of the boa constrictor like this:
Unfortunately, grown-ups can't understand the second picture, either. The narrator was so disappointed to find out the truth.
"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and for ever explaining things to them"
"I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-ups would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man."
The narrator's experience is, for me, a warning, that parents should never kill their kids' ability of imagination.
I have a six-year-old boy named Zho, whose head teacher asks them to draw a picture every weekend as their homework. Before I read the book, every time when my little boy asked me for help, I always tried to help him draw well.
"Mom, my homework today is to draw a car. Could you help me to draw a car?"
"I'm happy to do it with you, sweetie.But I don't know how to draw a car, either. Let's learn online how to make it."
And then we learned how to draw cars, and then fish, and trees, and sharks, and so on. These are some of the pictures:
For a long time, I've believed I did a good job and my son's drawings became better and better. After learning the narrator's experience, I finally realized what a foolish mistake I made. Those pictures are not his but mine.
How come he needs to learn to draw a car?
Look at all the pictures he drew with my help. They're completely unimaginative, overly pragmatic, and dull, without any imagination.
Shouldn't kids' perspective be creative, full of wonder, and open to the mysterious beauty?
What a stupid mother I am.
"Mom, my homework today is to draw a bean. Let's learn how to draw a been online"
"You know what? We don't need to learn how to draw a been. You can imagine what it looks like and make it"
"I'm afraid I can't."
"Of course you can! You can draw your own been. Just draw it as what you think it might be like."
And this is his bean. A bean from a six-year -old boys' world.
What do you think of the picture? Obviously, it's not so good in adults' eyes, because most of them are lack of ability to understand it. If I didn't read the book, I might have thought it terrible, just like what those adults did when they were shown the two pictures of the boa constrictor.
I feel lucky I've been changed by the narrators' story and my son is happy to explain it to me.
It's a picture full of love and imagination in every details.
"Mom, this is the mother bean. She's sleeping in the bedroom. And this is the baby been. He can't play games with his mom now, because she's tired and needs to have a break. He climbs up to the roof of the mushroom house. He is thinking about some happy things… Can you guess what it is? A dancing cucumber…"
After that, I gave up teaching my son how to draw pictures well. What a six-year-old boy needs is not good pictures, but his own pictures. These are some of his pictures:
My boy tells me that's his dream house. Inside of the house, there is a living room, a dining room, two bedrooms, and a toy room, and a kitchen and…
In this picture, he says, he is dancing with me on mushrooms. Mom's mushroom is red because red is her favorite…
Can you see my son's five little pigs in the picture? Yes, there are five pigs in the picture. My boy says they are not normal pigs. They can make 72 changes like the Monkey King. One of them has changed into a bird and another one has turned himself into a caterpillar…
I love all his pictures so much!
Thanks to “the Little Prince”, after reading the narrator's experience in Chapter One, I get a chance to walk into my son's world.
That's just the beginning of the story. What can the rest part of the book bring to us? Let's look forword to my next passage. At least we have known that though “the Little Prince” is a contemporary fairy tale, it's primarily written for grown-ups as a leader to the children's opinion of the world.
