Kingdom of Cynthia: The Andersen Prize nominated picture books, giving children the dual edification of words and paintings.

If your best friend hasn't come home for a long time, you especially want to find him, but you are naturally afraid of going out, only like to live quietly in a familiar environment, and have instinctive fear of the strange world. What should you do?

I finally got up the courage to find a friend, but when I walked in the forest, I found that the tree had eyes and would keep going. What should you do? Will you be scared to run away?

Annie, the short-listed illustrator of the International Andersen Award and the Lin Gelun Memorial Award? In Brouillard's picture book The Kingdom of Cynthia: Looking for the Magician in Red, the black dog Qi Reoch encountered such a scene, but what about his friend the Magician in Red? Accompanied by Veronica, a human girl, Jiezu bravely walked out of the comfort zone and into the mysterious forest. ...

Annie. Brouillard is a Belgian illustrator, and her works have been shortlisted for many awards: Bologna Children's Book Award, Bratislava International Illustrator Biennale, Montreuil Children's Book Fair, French Witch Award ... In 2020, she was nominated for Lin Gelun Memorial Award and International Andersen Award.

The Kingdom of Cynthia: Looking for the Magician in Red is a mysterious adventure picture book drawn and created by her according to her childhood imagination and what she saw and heard in Sweden. The whole story is full of atmosphere and people can't take their eyes off it.

Whether it is the fantasy world shaped by words or the beautiful scenery shown by illustrations, especially the details such as rigorous maps and newspaper layouts, people suddenly feel that Cynthia is a real and charming place.

This is a story that people can't read. The beginning is full of suspense. On rainy days, black dog Reoch sits in a warm room and drinks coffee. It seems that the years are quiet, but he is not at ease. He listens to the footsteps outside from time to time.

So his good friend Wally? Jiezu hasn't been heard from for months. Zerich is worried. After waiting for him, he finally could not sit still. He got up and went to their friend Veronica to help him make a decision. There, he heard more strange news:

There are strangers coming in and out of the nearby laboratory. The weather has been particularly wet and rainy these days, and there seems to be a depression on the hay ridge in the distance. Jiezu's caravan.

So, Wali the wizard in red? Where the hell is Jezu?

Veronica immediately decided that she should go out and find Wally? Jazu, she started. She found the map, planned the route and made a list of things to bring. ...

Compared with her super execution ability, Qi Ruohe has to hesitate a lot. He has never traveled far, likes to live a quiet life in a familiar place, and is full of fear of adventure in the big forest. But in the end, he decided to go with Veronica out of concern for his friends.

In the forest, the tree with eyes is creepy, and the wet ground makes his paws wet and cold, but Qi Reoch never wants to back down. His persistence in friendship is touching.

From the beginning, this story made people hang a heart, and always vaguely felt that there was an ominous omen, but in the end it turned out to be a false alarm, without a thrilling and cruel moment. Although it did great harm to the prodigy villain, the whole struggle process was smooth and rapid.

On the contrary, along the way, I met beautiful scenery, warm huts and enthusiastic homeowners, pushing a thick car full of autobiographical twins and stirring clouds with a cream blender to help flyers fly. ...

The forest is not as gloomy as expected, but rich and touching, and even Reoch can't help but feel that this is a wonderful trip after all.

The first thing that attracted me was the illustration on the cover of this book. At first glance, those rugged ancient trees on the open water have a sense of time, which makes people feel inexplicably at ease. No matter the pink clouds in the sky, or the golden light of the sun on the treetops and tents, they are all so vivid, and the overall color is matched with advanced harmony, giving people a fairyland-like beauty and forbearance.

Opening the inner page is even more amazing, because the artistic forms in illustrations are flexible and diverse, with rigorous maps, comic perspective views, bird's-eye views and cross-sectional views, which can be moved at will according to the needs of the plot, making it particularly enjoyable to watch.

I especially like Annie? Brouillard's illustrations are not only flexible and diverse in painting form, but also very mild and harmonious in tone. The whole picture looks clean and thorough, with a wide field of vision and a particularly comfortable look and feel.

The use of sunlight is particularly prominent. No matter how dark and humid the forest is, you can always see the details illuminated by light in the casual corner, which is highly consistent with her whole narrative style. In the process of exploration, Reoch was uneasy, but he went forward firmly for the friendship he cherished in his heart and had a different kind of beautiful experience.

In recent years, thanks to buying picture books for two children and reading many beautiful illustrations, I feel more and more that high-quality illustrations are the soul of children's books, and beautiful pictures that complement each other with words can make people feel spring breeze.

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Cynthia is a fictional country, but when we read it, we often forget it. We unconsciously yearn for Cynthia's kingdom, as if we were in any corner of the world and wanted to see it.

This is inseparable from the author's creation of a complete world system and forbidden details. First of all, it starts with a map of Cynthia's whole area, which consists of 1 1 countries. The protagonist in this story lives in Jinghu country in the east, and the moss they saved was abducted by pests from the wet country in the northeast.

The protagonist enlarged a local map in time when planning the route. The outlines of roads, rivers, railway tunnels and even boundary lines are clearly marked, which makes people suddenly feel that they are looking at a real map.

In the cabin, the owner brought back a newspaper, including weather forecast, news and current affairs, and a daily sentence. This decent layout also makes people feel very real.

Although Cynthia is a fictional place name, the author has created a world with a complete system for it, and with a rigorous map, it is not only the background of the story, but also an abstract symbol, but a place where a group of people live in real life.

George martin said in Game of Thrones: "Reading can experience a thousand kinds of life, but people who don't read can only live once. Indeed, reading can greatly enrich our life experiences. In particular, such a fantastic and mysterious foreign country created in The Kingdom of Cynthia: Looking for the Magician in Red will leave a deep impression on children.

Annie. Brouillard's inspiration for writing this book comes from what she saw in her childhood. And who can say clearly, what kind of life stories will children who have enriched their childhood with this book write in a few years?

More wonderful 3~ 12-year-old picture books list: popular science, literature and history, art enlightenment, game books, you should read widely when you are young.