Never thought my work would be printed in a textbook

As a third grade teacher at Thuan Hoa 1 Primary School, An Minh District (Kien Giang Province), Mr. Ngoan has been involved in writing since 2012. However, this teacher never thought that his work would appear in textbooks.

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And finally, the work called Xuong ba la que toi by Mr. Ngoan was printed in the Vietnamese textbook for grade 5 (volume 2), the series Connecting knowledge with life. Mr. Ngoan shared that the content of the work is about the image of a three-leaf boat in the West. “An item closely associated with the lives of people in the river region. I wrote this work a long time ago. By chance, one evening when I saw the image of a three-leaf boat, this work was born,” Mr. Ngoan shared. When his work appeared in the new textbook, the young teacher could not hide his joy and happiness. “I am happy that my work is closer to readers. I myself am also a person working in the education sector, so when one of my works is included in the curriculum, it is a happy and proud thing,” the young teacher expressed. The genres that Ngoan pursues are mostly essays and short stories. He writes about familiar images, closely associated with his life, which are typical of his hometown in the river delta. Through that, the 9X guy wants to introduce the image of his hometown to readers, about simple things that touch the hearts of many people. “In the work My hometown ’s three-leaf canoe , I want to convey the life and generous and affectionate character of the people in the West. Through a very ordinary object but it brings the soul of an entire land,” said Ngoan. For the young teacher personally, to write stories for children, first of all, you have to love children and be able to play with them. “When writing stories for children, we cannot put the perspective of adults on children, so we have to look at things as innocently as possible. The language and expression must also be natural and easy to understand,” said the 9X guy.

"Amateur" turns to literature

Having pursued natural sciences since high school, Ngoan only began to pursue his writing career when he became a student of primary education. Therefore, he encountered many difficulties at first. “Although I had no foundation, reading a lot of books helped me gain more life experience and learn more from those who came before me. Thanks to that, I have been able to pursue my literary career until now,” said Ngoan.

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After more than 10 years of pursuing writing, for Ngoan, the most important thing when composing is his own emotions and life experiences. Perhaps that is why his works are imbued with the "breath" of the land and people of the Southwest. "I have a deep love for my homeland. With the advantage of being born and raised in the countryside, plus the nature of my job, I have a lot of contact with children. Those are the materials for my compositions," Ngoan confided. Ngoan added: "Many people advise me to write to escape the West, but I think that with a land that I do not have knowledge, experience and experience, I cannot touch the emotions of anyone, including myself." Currently, Mr. Ngoan has 3 collections of stories and 1 collection of essays published, specifically: Short story collection Waiting Wharf (Culture - Literature Publishing House, 2019), essay Rain in the salty land (Kim Dong Publishing House, 2021), short story The sun is also lonely (Kim Dong Publishing House, 2022), long story U Minh Identity (Kim Dong Publishing House, 2023). Among them, the collection of stories that he likes the most is U Minh Identity. “When writing that collection of stories, I had a lot of emotions because I was telling about my own childhood, about the people who grew up together. The main content is about the friendship of 3 children in U Minh land, they grew up with the joys and sorrows of the land, the jokes of children along with the sadness of adults. But in the end, they still see the humanity and generosity of the people in this land,” said Mr. Ngoan. Sharing about his upcoming plans, Mr. Ngoan said that he will complete an unfinished collection of stories for children.