Look at the cover first:
This book won the most popular picture book of the year at the Bronn International Children's Book Fair; Selected for the Taipei County Mantianxing Reading Plan.
The author created such a small town: nothing special, but very special. There are flowers everywhere in the town, and vibrant flowers are blooming everywhere, with their profusion and fragrance; There are flowers on every balcony window and on the road. Even the gas station, a place reminiscent of the unpleasant smell of gasoline and abandoned cars, is full of flowers. The residents of Huacheng used flowers to warm and beautify the cold industrial civilization, and let butterflies, the flower spirits, fly in their dreams and shine on their hearts.
Unexpectedly, the autocratic mayor ordered all the flowers in the city to be removed on the grounds that flowers prevented citizens from actively engaging in construction and learning. He denied the value and significance brought by "flowers"-beauty, happiness, vitality and hope. The mayor's pragmatism made him see only superficial achievements. He arbitrarily imprisoned flowers and butterflies in the "tomb of dreams". Without the nourishment of flowers, people's lives in small towns become dull, and people are in a hurry every day, thinking only of work, without pursuit and dreams. From here on, the picture becomes gloomy and colorless, just like the hearts of people in a small town, gloomy and depressed, and there is no more laughter.
"It's boring to live here!" The children spoke the voices of all the residents. "We must find a way." The pursuit of freedom and joy can't stop people's footsteps. The children found the "tomb of dreams" and opened the closed door. The wind and rain blew the flowers and trees back to the town, and Huacheng came back. People are singing and dancing, and happy and festive pictures reappear.
For us, do we have utilitarian ideas like the mayor and deprive children of their butterfly dreams like the mayor? Years of experience and experience make us pursue some material things more, but choose to forget our inner world and choose burial. But for children, their world is colorful. A piece of paper and a flower may be a world. We adults, on the other hand, deprive them of their colorful world on the grounds of "uselessness" and "wasting time". In the flashy world, impetuous us always ask our children according to our own standards: if we do it too slowly, we will be desperately urged; Do not do well, or scold or complain; Do something wrong, even beat and scold. Have we forgotten that making children grow up happily is the fundamental and most basic goal and pursuit? If you love a child, you must accept everything and tolerate everything.
Don't forget your original intention, you can achieve your ultimate goal. Dreams are eternal and hopes are infinite.
Related comments:
When we see Flower City, our eyes will first be attracted by the colorful butterfly on the cover. Painter Steven? Chawuer painted large and small circles and rectangles with transparent watercolors, and those geometric figures of red, pink, yellow and blue bloomed in the night sky like fireworks. In the dim light, the night in the small town presents a fantastic atmosphere in the subtle change of blues ... Open the inside page and a small town full of flowers appears-in the park, by the bridge, outside the attic, on the windowsill, on the roof, on the roadside, full of all kinds of flowers, attracting butterflies to fly everywhere. When the mayor convicted Hua Hudie, it was very appropriate for Chawuer to paint the streets that lost their lives in gray, black and brown. When the children found the "tomb of dreams" and opened the closed door, the wind and rain blew the flowers and trees back to the town, just like colorful auspicious clouds. At this time, the painter outlined the festive scene of people singing and dancing in the square with bright orange tones. Finally, the five butterflies in the picture are flying in the blue night sky and the flowers are in full bloom, forming a colorful flower city map, which complements the cover.
* Although the Flower City is a fairy tale, it is not difficult to find mayor-type figures around us. Their pragmatic ideas oppress people's free pursuit of dreams. Authors and painters remind people through the Flower City: Don't be afraid to dream. When the world becomes gloomy and desperate, let imagination and creativity solve problems and tide over difficulties. As long as you have a dream in your heart, as long as you persist, you can finally let your dream open up the infinite possibilities of life!
* When we do something in life, we always go straight to the goal and put all our experiences on something valuable and meaningful. What is "useful" and "useless"? What criteria do we use to judge? The Flower City, written by Effie Haslaw, leads us to think about this problem.
In the eyes of the mayor, taller buildings and bigger factories are meaningful things. In fact, what the mayor sees is interest, and what his eyes see is interest. High-rise buildings are the witness of the development of the times, and large factories are the external manifestations of the economic system, which can bring us immediate benefits. It's like sending children to cram school to improve their grades quickly. But what about the things behind the grades? Because of these reasons, the children lost their happiness in life. Because of these reasons, the villagers only thought about work, work, work and slept in their sleep all day. Because of these reasons, the children lost their laughter?
The story of Huacheng reminds us that there are too many things in the world, which are far more worthy of our treasure and care than cold machines, especially everything in nature, which seems inconspicuous, can often bring comfort and prosperity to the soul.