Mr. Lloyd Cotsen, the benefactor of the Cotsen Children’s Library, maintained a lifelong interest in illustrated children’s books and visual materials. What began as a family library of picture books read with his young children grew into an expansive historical and international research collection celebrating a rich variety of languages, cultures, genres, and formats. (In this respect, he was a kindred spirit of Alice, who famously questioned the usefulness of books without pictures before dozing off on a hot summer afternoon—much like the ones that have befallen Princeton in an unusually early month this year.)

The Chinese delegation of publishers and editors visited the Cotsen Children’s Library gallery, the child-friendly reading space open to the public. (Photo courtesy of the delegation)

On a humid day in July, the Cotsen Children’s Library welcomed a delegation of publishers and editors from China. The twenty-two members, representing more than a dozen publishing houses and media organizations, came to explore Cotsen’s collection of Chinese-language materials. In the United States, publishing for children is typically the business of dedicated imprints or specialized presses. In China, however—especially during the height of the children’s book boom that began in the mid-2000s—numerous publishers, from university presses to the most unlikely candidates (including those traditionally specializing in niche domains), hopped onto the crowded bandwagon of publishing for young readers.

The Cotsen collection holds more than 15,000 titles of Chinese-language children’s materials, spanning from pre-modern times to the present. The bulk of the collection dates from after the late 19th century, when China’s crushing defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) prompted anguished intellectuals to seek national salvation and revitalization. Looking earnestly abroad for answers, they found hope in children’s books and instructional materials—often carrying illustrations—translated from the victorious Japan and the West. They hoped to provide the next generation with engaging and pedagogically effective reading materials, so that boys would grow into learned citizens and strong soldiers, and girls into wise mothers nurturing patriotic sons (Judge 109).

Political fluctuations, pedagogical initiatives, and constraints related to technology, resources, and consumer purchasing power have all shaped the history of Chinese children’s books. For the delegation, we selected titles that reflect China’s non-linear, and often halting, progress in producing illustrated materials for children.

Right: Wang Tong, Vice President of the China International Book Trading Corp. (CIBTC), views From Feng Tzu-K’ai’s Drawings of Children. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Martin Heijdra)

“When father is out,” in From Feng Tzu-K’ai’s Drawings of Children. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1956. (Cotsen 72422) (page 17)

The book was published by the Foreign Languages Press, which, like CIBTC, is a subsidiary of the China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration, a state-owned institution responsible for international publicity and communication. Feng Zikai (丰子恺, 1898-1975) developed a distinctive style of comic art, blending the cartoon format he first encountered in Japanese publications with traditional Chinese brushwork and painting. Some of the artist’s most beloved works humorously and tenderly depict the childhood of his own children. The Feng Zikai Chinese Children’s Picture Book Award—the first international award for Chinese-language picture books—is named in honor of this prolific artist.

Curator of the Cotsen Children’s Library and delegates from the Jiangxi Publishing and Media Group Co. Ltd. pose with books from the 21st Century Publishing House, its children’s imprint. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Martin Heijdra)

On the left, held by Lin Yun, General Manager of China Peace Publishing House Co. Ltd., is the Chinese edition of No! That’s Wrong! Unbeknownst to us when we made the selection, Lin—who was the primary editor of the book—was one of the visitors. On the right, held by Vice General Manager Zhou Jiansen, is a nonfiction title that explains Karl Marx’s Das Kapital in comic book format.

No! That’s Wrong! Nanchang: Er shi yi shi ji chu ban she, 2011. (Cotsen 153522Q)

In No! That’s Wrong! a critically acclaimed debut picture book by Ji Zhaohua and Xu Cui, a rabbit challenges conventional wisdom about dress codes and decides for itself the “right” way to wear a strangely shaped piece of clothing it stumbles upon in the forest. At a pivotal moment in its struggle, the rabbit breaks the fourth wall to block unsolicited opinions from an invisible narrator-commentator.

An Illustrated Version of Das Kapital. Nanchang: Er shi yi shi ji chu ban she, 1996. (Cotsen 84282) The comic book explains both Karl Marx’s magnum opus and the history of how it was written.

Curator and delegates from Phoenix Juvenile and Children’s Publishing Ltd. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Martin Heijdra)

Held by Chief Editor Liu Zongyuan is a title from his publishing house: The Sweet Orange Tree (2015) written by Cao Wenxuan and illustrated by Zhu Chengliang (Cotsen N-000687). The story’s protagonist is a boy with cognitive disabilities—a recurring theme in the works of the Hans Christian Andersen Award-winning author.

A wooden building block set. Shanghai: Xin Yi Toy Company, undated. (Cotsen 31279)

In addition to books and magazines, we displayed non-book materials, such as this wooden building block set, manufactured by a toy company in Shanghai, possibly during the 1950s. It appears no less versatile or challenging than Lego.

Titles donated by China Peace Publishing House Co. Ltd.

China Peace Publishing House generously donated four of its titles to the Cotsen Children’s Library:

• Do Not Let the Sun Fall, written by Guo Zhenyuan and illustrated by Zhu Chengliang (2018)
• A Night of Camping in the Library, written by Gao Hongbo and illustrated by Li Haiyan (2023)
• Amu, the Nanai People’s Hero, written and illustrated by Li Dan (2024)
• To the Mountains, by Yang Xiaoyan (2022)

Reference

Judge, Joan. The Precious Raft of History: the Past, the West, and the Woman Question in China. Stanford University Press, 2008.