The Child of the Siheyuan/四合院的孩子

Vividly recreating daily life within a Siheyuan (quadrangular courtyard) through both illustrations and text, returning to the warmth and beauty of life itself.

图文并茂再现四合院里的日常，回归温暖而美好的生活本身。

This is an illustrated memoir spanning the 1940s and 1950s. It captures the scenes of life in a Beijing "Siheyuan" (quadrangular courtyard) as seen and felt by a young boy-from the layout of the courtyard to the furnishings inside the rooms, from the plants, trees, cats, dogs, birds, and insects in the yard to daily necessities, rituals, and festivals, and from children's studies, writing practice, and games to the old friends and new acquaintances of the parental generation. Every detail, big or small, authentically recreates the fabric of life during that period. Now an elder in his twilight years, the boy has reconstructed a "Siheyuan" from memory through evocative writing and expressive illustrations, guiding readers back to a bygone yet eternally innocent time. The点滴 recordings in the book offer not only an intimate, microscopic view of an ordinary Beijing household from over seventy years ago but also a shared empathy for an era and a city.

这是一本图文并茂的回忆录。时间跨度为上世纪40-50年代，记录了一个小男孩看到和感受到的北京四合院生活情景--从院子的格局到屋内的家具陈设，从屋外院中的花草树木、猫狗鸟虫到衣食住行、年节礼仪，从孩子们的学书习字、娱乐游戏到父辈往来的旧雨新知等。凡此大事小情，都真实地再现了那一时期生活的样貌。如今这个小男孩已是耄耋老人，他用入情的文字，用富有意趣的图画，重建了一座记忆中的四合院，带读者返回已然消逝但永远纯真的生命时光之中。书中的点滴记述，既是对七十多年前一户平凡北京人家的个体微观，更有对一个时代、一座城市的共情。