In which era did picture books first appear?

Picture books can be traced back to Japan and China in the 8th century, when they were used to spread religious stories and historical events.

Picture books, also known as picture books, are a form of children's books in which both words and pictures participate in narration. In children's reading, picture books are often studied and promoted as a separate category. Although picture books have a history of 100 years in China, picture books in the modern sense were introduced and published by domestic children's books publishing house around 2000, and then gradually popularized.

At that time, foreign picture books occupied the main body of the picture book market in China. In recent 10 years, China's original picture books have flourished and become the main body of the picture book reading market in terms of creation, publishing, education and promotion, and are increasingly favored by children and parents.

The reasons are the development law of introducing foreign countries to promote local creation, the readers' natural closeness and love for China culture, and of course the unremitting efforts of practitioners to keep improving and constantly meet the reading needs of young readers.

Creative content:

China's original picture books are rich in local culture and contain various contents. There are too many rich contents in China's 5,000-year-old excellent traditional culture to present to children. Telling the story of a long culture with picture books has formed the characteristics of "small picture and big culture"-this is undoubtedly the closest form of cultural exchange for children.

In terms of creative content, Chinese excellent traditional culture is a major theme of China's original picture books. Some picture books are based on folk culture, holiday seasons and eating customs, some plot stories are based on or adapted from historical stories, folk anecdotes, myths and legends, some draw creative inspiration from classical literature, classic cultural masterpieces, children's songs and ballads, and some involve traditional opera art themes.

For example, the series of picture books "Let China Go to the World: Talking about Intangible Heritage" introduces the intangible heritage such as Peking Opera, Shadow Play, Seal Cutting and Puppet Show to young readers in four volumes. Each volume tells the history of intangible heritage with interesting words, shows the colorful traditional folk art in China, and takes children to feel and experience the art and culture in life.