The Infancy of Children’s Literature in China

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Chu Siyi (褚司怡)

A century ago, the founding of a children’s magazine witnessed a progressive movement in how modern Chinese society wrote for—and saw—children

In 1923, Ye Shengtao (叶圣陶), an intellectual who had recently begun writing for children, attached a note of caution to his latest submission to his editor: “Perhaps you might not find it ‘childish’ enough?” His manuscript told of a compassionate scarecrow who helplessly watches an elderly farmer, a fisherwoman, an abused wife, and a carp all suffer misfortunes in front of him, and eventually collapses in the field due to the crushing guilt and despair he felt.

Such a dark tale may not be classified as children’s reading in China today, where parents have tried to ban the classic novel Outlaws of the Marsh and even the Xinhua Dictionary for having content inappropriate for minors. But for Zheng Zhenduo (郑振铎), the founder and editor-in-chief of Children’s World magazine, “ The Scarecrow” was exactly what China’s new generation of children should be reading. The story became Ye’s most influential work for how it captured a mature sorrow toward social injustices in the language of children, and the magazine itself went on to weather two decades of change—reflecting a wider progressive movement in how modern Chinese society saw children, and leaving its mark on Chinese children’s literature for decades to come.

Children’s World was the first magazine for Chinese children to feature original content written in vernacular Chinese as opposed to classical language. Zheng, who had been a textbook and magazine editor at The Commercial Press (also TWOC’s parent company) before he founded the magazine, was jaded by what he saw in children’s publishing at the time. “Before, education for children was like an injection, aiming only to fill their head with all kinds of rigid knowledge, rigid disciplines…There were too few books driven by children’s reading [habits],” he declared in a “Children’s World Manifesto” distributed by major periodicals before the magazine’s inaugural issue in January 1922.

Young readers who closely followed the magazine in the decades to come would have discovered many delights to fill what Zheng called a “gap” in Chinese children’s publishing: In the year 1927 alone, for example, the content ranged from a biography on Mahatma Gandhi, to a letter between two children discussing the difference between sensations (感觉) and emotions (感情), to a fable of a chicken convincing a crow to flee from war (spoiler: the arrogant crow was killed by enemy soldiers who couldn’t find any chicken left to eat).

The magazine aimed to cover every aspect of children’s lives and satisfy their curiosities. Its special “Hygiene” issue in July 1927, for example, includes an explanation of belly buttons and constipation, an illustrated poster on eye protection, and a song from the perspective of a mosquito arguing with a fly. In 1934, a special issue on Southeast Asia discussed not only the circumstances of the Chinese diaspora there, but also the customs of indigenous peoples, taking special care to remind young readers, “We cannot despise them based on our own biases, and see them as barbarians.”

Zheng Erkang (郑尔康), Zheng Zhenduo’s own son, was among the captive readers. Though born during the tail end of Children’s World’s publication, Erkang spent considerable time as a little boy devouring cartoons drawn by his father or immersed in the crafts section to figure out how to turn a sorghum stalk into the shape of an animal or a piece of paper into a boat. “Sometimes father came to my aid,” Zheng Erkang wrote for China Reading Weekly, a newspaper about books and publishing, in 1997 at age 59. “He was like a magician.”

However, Lu Xun (鲁迅), arguably the most quoted writer and opinion leader from early modern China, was somewhat dismissive of the magazine in his 1926 essay “Twenty-Four Filial Children.” “Every time I see pupils so enthralled by a copy of something unrefined like Children’s World, I think of how exquisite children’s books in other countries are. Naturally, I feel bad for children in China.” But to some extent, this proves that Zheng Erkang was not an outlier, and that the magazine was indeed a success at least among its intended readers.

Known for his biting wit, Lu Xun reserved the bulk of his ire for earlier children’s literature in Chinese history, such as the 14th century’s Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars (《二十四孝》), a collection of stories whose sole purpose was to preach filial piety. Other reading materials for children in ancient China such as the Three Character Classic (《三字经》, sets of three-character rhymes about history which kids today still have to memorize, was similarly stiff and moralistic,

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