What is meant by "new knowledge"?

Reading books for modern children is receiving information. However, why for modern ones? Too often I hear that today children are approaching books too pragmatic. Answering the question of the benefits of the book, most often they say that you need to read in order to know a lot, study well, develop your speech. We, adults, are very touched by this approach.

In turn, the organizers of the reading surveys say that parents prefer to buy an encyclopedia to the child-only it can really captivate the child. And a collection of poems, fairy tales - all this is not quoted.

I will not argue. My children, the children of my friends, my students also read to find out something new. And this is completely natural. They now have such a task in life - to find out as much new as possible. It’s just that “new knowledge” can be understood not only by the encyclopedia of dinosaurs. But the story of children in which you can find out what a person is experiencing when he first feels something. And also poetry, because it is it that allows us to “find out” about the possibilities of the language. And also fairy tales, fairy tales. And science fiction. Because these are perfect forms to enthusiastically tell the child how the world works. All this is the child "recognizes." Meets for the first time.

Nevertheless, I would like to clarify the question of cognitive literature for children. Do we have too much or catastrophically few? It is a lot of translated - and that is good? Or is it bad and you need to develop your own Russian? Or do we have enough domestic books in this area, but few people know about them?

In a manner in a manner, she began to ask questions to those whom I trust.

Evgenia Katz , a person, in my opinion, is very correctly related to children's cognitive activity.

Ilya Kolmanovsky , journalist, editor, scientist, guide, school teacher, popularizer of science in all its manifestations, author of the Pocket Scientist project-a scientific and cognitive podcast, in which Ilya explains the most incomprehensible things in understandable children.

- It is very important for children that reading is not only interesting, but also useful, informative, but adults often treat such reading quite strangely: they contrast it with reading art books. Why do you think?

Evgenia Katz: It seems to me that often cognitive books in adults are associated with something boring, written in a more dry and formal language. Parents read art books with children, discuss, sharing emotions, then giving examples - from books and from life. At the scientific books, attitude is often as textbooks. Although cognitive books can be very saturated emotionally and quite fascinating.

From the surprisingly entertaining, complete adventures of the book about Karik and Valya (Jan Larry, “Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Vali”) you can learn a lot of real scientific facts from the life of insects and plants. In Olga Kuvykina’s book “Letters of insects” there are a lot of interesting information, but the book is not boring at all.

Ilya Kolmanovsky: In my opinion, the opposite is true. Children read what is interesting, exciting, and adults are baking about the benefits. Another thing is that children may not be interested in the experiences of the Martian, that is, a nobleman of 40 years who lived in another country 200 years ago (of course, we must be able to make them interesting - but how, this is a separate question; see, for example, Pennak’s opinion about this . And, on the contrary, information about what a person on board the ISS can be more interesting; but the ISS, in turn, cannot be compared with Harry Potter. So this is not a question "Fix VS.

-Now quite a lot of interesting cognitive and popular science books are published. But they are more often translated. How do you think that it interferes or is the Russian potential authors of such books?

Zhenya: In the Russian tradition, it is also customary to write scientific articles with a dry language that is difficult to read. And in the Western tradition, even complex scientific achievements explain on the fingers so that the fifth grader can figure it out, and if the scientist can explain to children on his fingers what he is busy, this is considered the height of professionalism.

And we, on the contrary, have enough popularizers of science: this direction is considered unnecessary or prestigious. Frivolous.

And those who know how to talk about their subject are interesting, of course, very busy: they give lectures, teach students, so they do not write books.

Ilya: To create a good cognitive book, you need the following. 1. Choose a topic for a particular audience (for example, children 12 years old). Interesting, unstable. 2. To make it qualitatively: to speak personally with scientists and other sources, to sit in archives and libraries; Check everything, look at everything with a fresh and admiring eye, as if for the first time. Read in languages, not to close in the Russian -speaking space - this is provincial. 3. It is interesting to do it, taking care that the reader lives to the end of the chapter. Tell stories that you can retell to friends.

- Zhenya, you are the author of several books for children and parents - and they, as it seems to me, are focused on the cognitive activity of children. How do these books are moving (who is their reader)?

Zhenya: My books are very different: “Unusual mathematics”, a picture book about games with children “Sashka, Sashka, what's in the pocket?” -For the smallest, books for mothers and their children-orch children, and they are focused on the development of game and educational activities.

“Mathematics in your hands” - for schoolchildren and parents, it is designed to search for non -standard solutions and for the ability to enjoy the mental process.

Children may not be interested in the experiences of the Martian, that is, a nobleman of 40 years who lived in another country 200 years ago.

Books for mothers - “Games for Beginning Mom”, “Pie with Mathematics” - this is a piggy bank of interesting ideas for common classes that would please both children and parents. It can be both cognitive games, as well as joint creativity, common games, or just games for the process. Books are sold very well: each has already been published by the third circulation.

The books have recently been published, and therefore it is difficult to judge how they are moving. But it was not easy to publish them. Even our most active publishers had no faith that these books would be sold well. The lack of the tradition of publication and reading of such literature for children and parents is affected.

- Ilya, you are an editor of several cognitive books. And you are engaged in their promotion. What is it? Can we talk about any specifics of promoting just such books?

Ilya: I must say that all the scientific-players who went to the “RG” sold themselves completely themselves (Hawking, “The Secrets of Anatomy”, Tomek). But we still do not just sell them - because we are not just a publisher, but a cultural project. The release of the book is an occasion to start the conversation, which we continue on blogs, in the podcast, in meetings of offline. We love to attract the authors (see the interview that Russian children took from Hawking ) - again, because in the 21st century the book is not such a thing cut down in the tablets, but a certain flag: its author puts in front of him an important topic and begins a conversation about it in different formats.

- What books seem to you a model of this genre - cognitive literature? And what books do you dream about?

Zhenya: I really like historical - and at the same time fabulous - the books of Andrei Zhavalevsky and Evgenia Pasternak “The True History of Santa Claus”, “Moskvest” and similar to them.

My daughter adored the “entertaining botanist” of the Publishing House “White City” (who has many other good popular science books for children), “Letters of insects” by O. Kuvykina.

Nick. Gorky, “Astrovite”: there are a lot of adventures, and physicists, and most importantly - the main idea is that you know a lot, read a lot and think with your head, to be able to quickly make different unexpected decisions more important and in many cases more useful than just have great power.

Ilya: I repeat Hessen for Masha: "Microbial hunters." This is about people - and about people are always most interesting. This book clearly influenced one of the most remarkable attempts in the USSR: the Chukovskaya and Marshak project in Detgiz (shortly before acceleration) - a project within which they taught real physics to write interestingly. So: Bronstein, "sunny substance." Also about people and through them - about physics. In 1937, Bronstein went to the scaffold for refusing to rewrite this book on those censorship patterns, which in 10 years captured the entire scientific and in the framework of the Zhdanishchina.

For me personally, Harriot’s books (namely him, not Darrell) are stronger than “House, MD” . Tintin, of course, is his twin brother Tomek-two wonderful geographical series, tintin is more talented, in my opinion. Last: Igor Akimushkin . It seems to be such digers, very secondary, but there is a striking ability to grab the most entertaining.

The editors thanks the All -Russian competition for the best literary work for children and youth "Booker" for support when working on this material.