Book Boom

The 5th China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair, which took place at the Shanghai Expo Exhibition Center from Nov 17-20, draws children and their parents for such events as book signings, meeting writers and early-education forums.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Lu Jun, deputy editor-in-chief of CITIC Publishing Group, believes 2015 marked the start of a "golden decade" of rapid development for China's children's books market.

In the past few years, China has introduced a large number of foreign books for children, which largely expanded the vision of China's parents and publishers. However, this has "to some degree suppressed the development of original Chinese creativity", Lu says.

Also, he attributed the underdevelopment of Chinese picture books to inefficient working practices among authors, illustrators, publishers and even printing factories.

"Things are beginning to change, and a growing number of outstanding books for children has been published".

British translator Helen Wang won the "special contribution" award at the Chen Bochui International Award for Children's Literature during the book fair.

"If there is a good story, let's share it, and let everyone share it," Wang says.

There are very few people who translate children's books from Chinese to English. When a friend invited her to translate Cao Wenxuan's Bronze and Sunflower, she took the job and went on to translate five more books by the author.

Thanks to the work of translators such as Wang, Cao has been published in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Korean. He won the Hans Christian Anderson Award in 2016.