Chinese / Taiwan
Zuo zhen ren ye ye, nin ji sui?
(Grandpa Zuojhen, how old are you?)
Wang, Shu-fen
(text)
Nan Jun
(illus.)
Tai bei shi: Ye shi wen chuang you xian gong si / Ba ba wen hua (Yes Creative Ltd. / Papa Publishing House), 2023. – [41] p.
(Series: Nao xing qiu xi lie; Bi12)
ISBN 978-626-97417-0-0
Taiwan | Prehistory | Fossil | Time | Picture book
Reading age: 6+
White Ravens issue: 2024
Prompted by a little girl’s questions, a human fossil, the so called »Zuojhen Man«, guides her through Taiwanese prehistory. The text by multi-award-winning children’s book author Wang Shu-fen does not go into depth about paleontological research into the fossils and parts of a neolithic human skull discovered in the Tsai-Liao River basin. Instead, it encourages reflection on the fact that humans are just a drop in the river of time. This river flows across page boundaries from the Paleolithic Rhinoceros sinensis hayasakai to the girl’s elementary school on the last page. The riverbed is brought to life by illustrator Nan Jun’s collages with superimposed translucent and opaque images, suggestive of the layers of sediments, in which the readers can discover fossils and living species during their journey through time and space. This transformation of the river of time into a poetic love letter to Taiwan received the 2023 Good Books for Everyone to Read Award as the Best Children’s Book. [LO]