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  • Qin WenjunAuthor–China

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Qin Wenjun was born in Shanghai in 1954. She expresses her conviction that all children are worthy of being portrayed in her famous quote, "Each and every child is an irreplaceable miracle." The beauty and innocence she depicts in her works are impossible for children themselves to put into literature and too often forgotten by adults.

Based on the status of children's literature in China in the late 1980s, Qin Wenjun proposed that "children's literature should center on children and humanity, with emotion expressed in interesting and diverse forms." During that period, books for children used a "deep pattern" expressing emotions and ideas so complicated that most little readers lost interest. Qin analyzed the problem, spearheaded a fundamental change, and in 1991 put her literary perspective into practice with the publication of her novel Jia Li in Junior High. Jia Li in Junior High has sold over three million copies and was made into a film, a TV series, a stage play, and a radio play.

Over her thirty-five years of writing, editing, and publishing, Qin Wenjun has also been an activist. For many years, she has served as the President of the China-Japan Children's Literature and Fine Arts Exchange Association, promoting awareness of children's literature and fine arts between the two countries. In 2008, in Shanghai, she founded the Shanghai Board on Books for Young People (SHBBY), a branch of CBBY whose members include over a hundred writers and illustrators from that city. She offered her villa to SHBBY, creating the "Cluckie's Reading House" to showcase works written by older, middle-aged, and young writers of juvenile literature.

Qin Wenjun is among the most popular writers of children's literature in China, winning the most awards in modern times. China is proud of her because of this and also because she opens a light on the night sky, enabling people to see myriads of glittering stars. As a writer of children's literature, she has lofty thoughts and a winning personality. She has also made enormous selfless contributions in such areas as the cultivation of new children's authors, the promotion of children's reading, the building of book-loving families and communities, and the improvement of cultural understanding among various countries. [End Page 14]

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