2005 VOL 43, NO. 3

into the forest with australian titles in french translation tribute to major new encyclopaedia of children’s literature picturebook versions of african folktales a literary award in friesland book ‘postcards’ from around the world professional books reviewed The Journal of IBBY,the International Board on Books for Young People

Editors: Valerie Coghlan and Siobhán Parkinson

Address for submissions and other editorial correspondence: [email protected] and [email protected]

Bookbird’s editorial office is supported by the Church of Ireland College of Education, Dublin, Ireland.

Editorial Review Board: Sandra Beckett (Canada), Penni Cotton (UK), Hans-Heino Ewers (Germany), Jeffrey Garrett (USA),Ariko Kawabata (Japan), Kerry Mallan (Australia), Maria Nikolajeva (Sweden), Jean Perrot (France), Kimberley Reynolds (UK), Mary Shine Thompson (Ireland),Victor Watson (UK), Jochen Weber (Germany)

Board of Bookbird, Inc.: Joan Glazer (USA), President; Ellis Vance (USA),Treasurer;Alida Cutts (USA), Secretary;Ann Lazim (UK); Elda Nogueira (Brazil)

Cover: The cover illustration is from Max Velthuijs’s Frog and the Birdsong Copyright © Max Velthuijs 1991. Published by kind permission of Random House, UK.

Production: Design and layout by Oldtown Design, Dublin ([email protected]) Proofread by Antoinette Walker Printed in Canada by Transcontinental

Bookbird:A Journal of International Children’s Literature (ISSN 0006-7377) is a refereed journal published quarterly by IBBY,the International Board on Books for Young People, Nonnenweg 12 Postfach, CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland tel. +4161 272 29 17 fax: +4161 272 27 57 email: [email protected] .

Copyright © 2005 by Bookbird, Inc., an Indiana not-for-profit corporation. Reproduction of articles in Bookbird requires permission in writing from the editor. Items from Focus IBBY may be reprinted freely to disseminate the work of IBBY.

IBBY Executive Committee 2004-2006: Peter Schneck (Austria), President; Patricia Aldana (Canada), Shahaneem Hanoum (Malaysia),Vice Presidents; Huang Jianbin (China),Ann Lazim (UK), Elda Nogueira (Brazil), Mari Jose Olaziregi (Spain),Anne Pellowski (USA),Vagn Plenge (Denmark), Chieko Suemori (Japan), Jant van der Weg-Laverman (Netherlands),Voting Members; Jeffrey Garrett (USA),Andersen Jury President; Urs Breitenstein (Switzerland),Treasurer; María Candelaria Posada, Director of Communications and Project Development; Elizabeth Page (Switzerland),Administrative Director;Valerie Coghlan (Ireland), Siobhán Parkinson (Ireland), Bookbird Editors

Subscriptions to Bookbird See inside back cover

Bookbird is indexed in Library Literature, Library and Information Abstracts (LISA), Children’s Book Review Index, and the MLA International Bibliography.

CANADA POSTMASTER: Bookbird. Publications Mail Registration Number 40600510. Send address changes to University of Toronto Press Inc., 5201 Dufferin Street,Toronto, ON M3H 5T8.

ISSN 0006-7377 I said it in Hebrew – I said it in Dutch – I said it in German and Greek: But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much) That English is what you speak!

FIRST: JAM A FIT THE ND JUDICIOUS ADVICE Editorial | page 4

In Memoriam Max Velthuijs (1923–2005) Jeffrey Garrett | page 5 GHTFUL AND FIT THE SECOND: THOU GRAVE Cultural Orienteering A Map for Anthony Browne’s Into the Forest Elizabeth Bullen and Elizabeth Parsons | page 8

Revising Traditional Practices in Two Picturebook African Folktales Vivian Yenika-Agbaw | page 18

Translating the Animal Kingdom Australian Titles in French Helen T Frank | page 25

E THIRD: SUCH QUA F SAND IT TH NTITIES O F Children’s Literature Studies around the World 3: Good Company: International Companion Encyclopaedia of Children’s Literature Nina Christensen | page 36

THE FOURTH: W FIT RAPPED UP IN A FIVE-POUND NOTE Children’s Literature Awards around the World 3: Friesland (Netherlands) Awards and Quality – Important Issues for a Small Literature Jant van der Weg | page 41 FIT THE F SHIP IFTH: OF SHOES AND S AND SEALING WAX Postcards from around the World | interleaved

Books on Books | page 48

Focus IBBY | page 54

The quoted stanza is from ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ by .The titles of the various Bookbird sections are taken from that same poem, from ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’, also by Lewis Carroll, and from ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ by Edward Lear. BOOKBIRD

AX VELTHUIJS’s gloriously ebullient frog, who features on the M cover of this issue of Bookbird to complement Jeffrey Garrett’s words (see page 5) recalling Frog’s late creator, has by now gathered a Editorial large international audience in many languages.This is due to the universal appeal of Frog, of course, but the short, simple and – for most readers – translated text probably also has something to do with it.This got us thinking about the art of translation, since translating short, simple texts like Velthuijs’s is notoriously difficult. Helen Frank’s provocative article in this issue on translating book titles echoes themes in two articles in the Routledge International Companion Encyclopaedia to Children’s Literature – discussed in this issue by Nina Christensen – in which Riitta Oittinen and Ronald Jobe emphasise that social, political and cultural significance is also part of the imparting of meaning through translation. Anglophone countries are, alas, notoriously weak in inward translation, which makes the contribution of Klaus Flugge, the publisher at Andersen Press of the ‘Frog’ series, all the more remarkable. Recently we attended the Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation.At its inception in 1996 this award was for translated books published in Britain during the previous six years. Now,the qualifying period is two years, a sign that matters have improved, at least in quantity.The quality is also superb: this year’s Marsh shortlist included Cornelia Funke’s The Thief Lord, Lene Kaaberbøl’s The Shamer’s Signet, Henning Mankell’s Playing with Fire,and Daniel Pennac’s The Eye of the Wolf and Kamo’s Escape. But it took 22 years for the Marsh Award winner, Pennac’s The Eye of the Wolf, to reach an English-speaking audience. Sarah Adams’s translation from the French was worth the wait, but think of all the young English speakers who have missed the great pleasure of reading it. However, that the award is gathering more entries is a positive sign, and perhaps we might optimistically propose that acceptance of books not set in a familiar environment, or with familiar cultural signifiers, may become usual, as is already the case with films. One of the aims of Bookbird is to break down the enclosing Bookbird editors walls that often surround children’s books.We wonder how long it will be before the books in Frisian discussed here by Jant van der Weg are available to a wider audience. But, of course, the walls are not always linguistic.Vivian Yenika- Agbaw’s article on African folktales starts to break down some walls built by cultural practice; and Elizabeth Bullen VALERIE COGHLAN is the librarian at the Church of Ireland College of Education in Dublin, and Elizabeth Parsons demonstrate in their article that the Ireland. She lectures on and writes about children’s work of Anthony Browne, often perceived to be ‘difficult’ – books and has a particular interest in picturebooks. and perception is another confining wall – is complex but SIOBHÁN PARKINSON is a writer of fiction accessible. for children and adults (young and otherwise) and a professional editor. Walls are merely the creations of our perceptions and our prejudices: they are eminently removable.

4 / BOOKBIRD Max Velthuijs In Memoriam

Jeffrey Garrett, president of the Award jury, pays tribute to the award’s most recent winner for illustration, (1923–2005) the late Max Velthuijs

have a green frog on my desk – actually he’s looking up at me right now. I’ve rigged him so he stands next to my computer I monitor, touching it or even stroking it at times with one of his green webbed feet, almost if he were bestowing a blessing. Last Christmas, the very first picture I took with my new digital camera was of this frog (see next page). I should probably explain that I don’t keep any other stuffed animals, so this is quite an exception. But there was something very unusual about this frog. He stands there now in front of me, his arms open wide as if he is about to give me a hug, or as if he is dancing for joy.His eyes are wide open, too, as if to say: I want to see everything, learn every- by JEFFREY GARRETT thing, meet new people, be open to new experiences and to all of life’s lessons. The frog on my desk wears a red scarf, knotted jauntily and slightly off-centre around his neck. I assume it’s because he likes red, because it sure can’t be for warmth. After all, the only other article of clothing he has on are a ridiculous pair of baggy,broadly striped shorts, as extroverted and as joyful as everything else about him. Am I nuts to devote valuable desk real estate to a joyful frog? Before you answer that, though, I first need to tell you a secret. And that is: whenever I bend over and put my ear close to his mouth, I hear a tiny MAX VELTHUIJS (1923–2005)

always, it seemed, and it was a smile as expansive and as welcoming as Kikker’s outstretched arms. The last time I saw him was in the company of his friend and publisher at Uitgeverij Leopold in Amsterdam, Liesbeth ten Houten. It was at the end of the IBBY Congress there,just hours before I left Cape Town to return to the States. Even at his age, he was out and about, exploring the city.Max told me he was tired,but that he didn’t want to miss the opportunity to see what there was to see. In that, too, I recognised him as Kikker. Jeffrey Garrett’s joyful frog Late in January,I received the news from Dutch thin voice saying something like ‘Is het leven niet IBBY that Max Velthuijs had passed away.He was prachtig?’As everyone knows, there are no foreign well into his eighties – an age we might all hope languages when we talk with fantasy friends, so I to achieve. I was sad for the passing of this man know instantly that my frog is saying: Isn’t life grand? who had written so much ‘to comfort children My frog’s name is Kikker. Last spring in Bologna, and reassure them as they venture out into the I met Kikker’s creator, the Dutch picturebook artist world around them,’ as the Andersen prize Max Velthuijs. I think I noticed the resemblances announcement had read. But I was also grateful between him and Kikker right away – though after for having had the opportunity to read so many reading so many Kikker books,I think at first glance of his books as a member of the 2004 Andersen I looked at him as Kikker’s creation,rather than the jury. Grateful, too, for having had the chance to other way around. It was above all Max Velthuijs’s meet him in person and to feel his magic. eyes that gave away their blood relationship.They Meanwhile, Kikker still watches me from the were as wide and as open as Kikker’s. In Bologna same spot on my desk as always. And he still and later that year in Cape Town,Velthuijs smiled whispers to me from time to time: Isn’t life grand?

Call for papers Histoires d’enfant, histoires d’enfance = Stories for Children, Histories of Childhood On 7 October 1913, The Times postu- to show a haughty disdain for studies (University of Kent at Canterbury) lated that in the new world of the 20th of children and childhood. Keynote speakers: Paula Fass (Univer- century,civilised behaviour would be This interdisciplinary conference sity of Berkeley), Colin Heywood measured by the way societies look will explore the complexities of our (University of Nottingham), Peter after their children.Almost one perceptions of childhood and, hope- Hunt (University of Wales, Cardiff), hundred years later, this same belief is fully,provide the opportunity for Kim Reynolds (University of still seen as central to our way of living experts of its literature and social Newcastle), Lynne Vallone (Texas A and our concept of civilised behaviour. history to ‘open windows’ of under- and M University) But beyond the rhetoric, what place standing that have hitherto eluded does the child hold in our culture and both.Although predominantly focused Abstracts of no more than 200 words what contribution has childhood made on the modern period in France, please to to its construction? The question may Britain and North America, no time- Rosie Findlay appear self-evident, even redundant, scale has been placed on the project, ([email protected]) yet until relatively recently academic nor is it strictly limited geographically. or Sébastien Salbayre research, with few exceptions, tended Guest speaker: Hugh Cunningham ([email protected])

6 / BOOKBIRD BOOKBIRDThe Peru vian chapter of CEDILI-IBB Y disseminates children’s stories about daily life in Peru’s rich natural and ‘La Waytacha cultural worlds. ’, published in Quechua, is from about a peasant girl the Andes who migrates with her parents to Peru Lima, in company ’s capital, with many Andean familie containin s. Their bag g stones awakens the gre ed of neighbours when th discover that the ‘stone ey s’ are actually gold nugg that they will ets. Convinced find similar treasure, the the immigrants all return to Andes in search of gold. There they discover that Teodoro Nunez Ureta treasure lies in wo the real rking the land. Teodoro N capture unez Ureta expertly s the different moods of (Lucy Nunez Rebaza illus) the characters, such as girl’s reaction to her the new home in a city slum from her , so different beloved countryside. He v ividly conveys the curiosit LA WAYTACHA surprise and expectation y, [The Little Flower] s of the other immigrant experience fe s. They ar, thirst for power, viole Lima e nce and a burning desire : CEDILI-IBBY 2004 30pp scape from poverty. The to author resolves their conf ISB showing how w licts by N 9972947572 (fiction 8 orking the land compens –10) prod ates workers by ucing a bounty of crops. Lilly C de Cueto

A child’s catalogue of life’s simple pleasures captures the essence of childhood. Some of the entries: ‘I love the smell of toast in the morning’, ‘I love to count how many people are riding in my car on the subway’, ‘I love when Papa makes pancakes and pretends to flip them over my head’, ‘I love to walk around the house in Mama’s high heels’, ‘I love the sound of raindrops on my red umbrella’, ‘I love to put my feet on Papa’s and MINNE AND NATALI FORTIER dance around the room’, ‘I love to hold a buttercup under my sister’s chin and say, If your chin turns I LOVE… = J’AIME…. yellow, it means you like butter’. La Jolla, Ca: Kane/Miller 2005; Paris Albin Accompanying each declaration of love is a Michel Jeunesse 2003 128pp ISBN (US edn) complementary image in soft colours, each with immense visual appeal. Together, text and pictures 1929132751 (picturebook, all ages) make each statement a warm celebration of chance moments remembered or day to day joys. Glenna Sloan

No. 3 – 2005 / 7 Clare Bradford)on aresearch projecton Australia. Theyare bothworking(with Elizabeth BullenandParsons risk, resilienceand children’s literature n LZBT PARSONS ELIZABETH and are lecturersinchildren’s literatureat yEIAEHBULLEN ELIZABETH by Deakin University, Warrnambool, Cultural Orienteering A Map for Anthony Browne’s Into the Forest O tnigo ik theknowledge sheneedstosurvive inadangerous standing ofrisk, reflect aboutthechildprotagonist’s different understandings under- accepting thewiseadviceof theirparents’.These two versions ofthetale only know how much they narrative reflects thebeliefthat ‘children need theGrimms’ and Reimer, According toNodelman disobedience asby herignoranceofdanger. theplotis driven asmuch by thechild’s Inthesecond, the world. of thedangerinforest andtherefore hastheknowledge tosurvive in itisassumed thatthechildisaware Inthefirst, brothers (1812). Grimm protagonist inPerrault’s (1697)talewiththoseintheversion by the they contrastassumptionsaboutthechild asacaseinpoint, Hood’ Taking ideology oftheculture thatretells‘Little RedRiding them. picturebook identifiesAnthonyBrowne’sThis article in today’s world risk andtheresources children needtosurvive expresses recent assumptionsaboutchildhood, retelling of‘LittleRedRidingHood’that and Reimer (2003) conclude that fairy talesencodethe and Reimer(2003)concludethatfairy Nodelman tales, infairy childhood andofchildcharacters of changesintheculturalconstruction historical bserving Into theForest don’t know sothey canseethewisdomof as are-gendered CULTURAL ORIENTEERING

Fairy tales encode the cent of the ‘Post-it’ notes people use as reminders ideology of the culture that about small tasks. In this format, the poignant retells them plea collides with a signifier of the niggly chore that might easily be forgotten by parents who are caught up in their own interests and worries. world, and therefore beliefs about childhood at the This implies a (somewhat critical) textual time they were written. What remains constant, commentary on the impact of these cultural however, is the danger the forest represents. shifts in contemporary families. In Into the Forest (2004),Anthony Browne offers a retelling of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ which expresses – and contests – more recent assump- tions about childhood, risk and the resources children need to survive in today’s world. In Browne’s version, the forest is the terrain in which a young male protagonist imaginatively explores his anxiety about his father’s unexplained absence. In this respect, the narrative speaks to widespread social anxieties about the family, particularly the effect of parental separation and divorce on chil- dren.The mother’s instruction not to go into the forest in Browne’s version is suggestive of contem- porary parents’ desire to protect children from unnecessary worry about what might happen to In this respect, the boy’s imagined fears reflect them in the case of family breakdown. On his the fact that the fundamental certainties of life – journey through the forest to Grandma’s house even home and family – have been disrupted. the boy meets various fairy-tale child characters, New risks, insecurities and anxieties have taken each representing some of these possibilities. their place and children (in fact all people) are increasingly responsible for constructing their The forest is the terrain in own biographical life projects, but without the which a young male support – or coercion – of tradition. In what protagonist imaginatively German sociologist Ulrich Beck (1992) calls risk explores his anxiety society, marriage and family have become fragile about his father’s institutions, and the risk of divorce or separation unexplained absence is something which children growing up in the West can hardly fail to be aware of. Into the Forest works to address the anxieties contemporary However, the boy’s anxiety in the opening social change and cultural knowledge create for frames suggests that he is acutely aware of the children. Unlike its traditional predecessors, social reality of family breakdown and its signi- however, it is not a cautionary tale. This close fiers before he enters the forest. He obsessively reading of the text investigates the way Browne’s labels the house with the message,‘Come home protagonist manages his feelings of apprehension Dad’, written on yellow pieces of paper reminis- about his father’s absence and what it might

No. 3 – 2005 / 9 CULTURAL ORIENTEERING

mean for his family’s future, by imaginatively reconstructing his individ- ual and family biographies against the older and/or imagined risks modelled by fairy tales. Ironically, this management entails seeking out a tradition to guide the process. Browne’s protagonist follows a path (albeit a frightening one) through the traditions of narrative. Folktales and fairy tales are stories marking the inception of children’s literature, and the protagonist’s journey through these stories to Grandma’s house is equally a journey towards Grandma as the storyteller. Her generational status signals the traditions of those rituals that are closely associated with childhood, both in relation to pleasure and socialisation. As such, she is set in contrast with the young mother who offers her son no explanation about his father’s Browne’s protagonist absence. But Into the Forest is also a challenge to tradi- follows a path through tions, and it enacts this challenge through its the traditions of narrative revisionary approach to ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, including a dramatic gender switch that sets it apart from both traditional versions and typical contemporary reworkings. This strategy of narrative transformation refigures a logic that is applied to visuals in Browne’s The Shape Game (2003). Ostensibly about a family trip to the museum, The Shape Game demonstrates that visual art can be played with so as to (positively) reconstruct the world.The players in the shape game metamorphose a squiggle into a recognisable object as a means of reconstituting one image into another. Following this strategy, but in narrative rather than visual form, Into the Forest’s reinterpretation of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ is by no means a simplistic reshaping. One read- ing of the text – quite subversive given the children’s book industry’s many unwritten rules about ‘appropriateness’ for young readers – is that the ideal of the happy family is a ; a fairy tale in that happy families don’t really exist, but equally a fairy tale in that fairy tales have long revealed to children the failures and treacheries committed by parents. Although the reunion of the family in Into the Forest appears to conform to the ‘happily ever after’ ending of traditional fairy The narrative closure reflects tales, this comforting cliché is positioned against reader a wish-fulfilment fantasy knowledge that the permanent emotional security it signals can no longer be guaranteed in contemporary family life.The narrative closure reflects a wish-fulfilment fantasy and the fact that ‘The most significant truth about fairy tales is that they represent things not as they really are but as the implied audience imagines they ought to be’ (Nodelman and Reimer 2003). In this respect, Browne’s closure is ironic and politically subtle.Attending to a similarly ironic, even bleak outlook, in Browne’s work, Clare Bradford (1998) and John Stephens (1994) both read the three flying pigs in the opening pages of

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The fairy-tale ending Burningham’s red-tinged picture of parents foregrounds the disjunction fighting in Aldo, for whom there is no accompa- between the ideological nying text to translate the event for the child reader (or child protagonist) who witnesses the fiction and reality scene. In Browne’s text, although the forest path Piggybook (1986) against the text’s overt feminist through fairy tales is the most direct way for the conclusion.The downtrodden mother transforms male protagonist to reach a conclusion, for the her husband and sons into good domestic author/illustrator the same path provides the subjects so that she has time to work as a indirect metaphoric camouflage of the fairy-tale mechanic. However, the precursive visual signifier intertexts. speaks the adage of impossibility about this happy The path through the ending, implying: yeah… and ‘pigs might fly’. forest provides the indirect Undercutting the distortion of reality in the fairy-tale ending of Into the Forest is defensible, metaphoric camouflage of since it foregrounds the disjunction between the the fairy-tale intertexts ideological fiction of the family and the reality These intertexts begin on the front cover contemporary child readers are not only aware which embeds Snow White’s glass coffin, the of but often experience. However, such social poisoned apple and the Frog Prince in the forest comment requires careful handling. Thus, the scene. Cinderella’s pumpkin and glass slipper, family breakdown is elided beneath the Sleeping Beauty’s spinning wheel and Rapun- metaphor of a stormy night that wakes the child. zel’s tower appear later, also part of the forest’s In Browne’s typically oblique style of written black and white (and thus less-real) territory. In text, the opening line is simply:‘One night I was the course of his journey through the forest, the woken up by a terrible sound.’ If readers choose protagonist encounters Jack, on his way to sell his to ignore the clue in ‘Come home Dad’, stuck mother’s cow,Goldilocks and Hansel and Gretel, on the window frame of the title page, the illus- before discovering Little Red Riding Hood’s tration of a lightning-filled sky outside the coat hanging in a tree. In his review in The New protagonist’s bedroom window suggests that the York Times, Roger Sutton (2004) remarks that terrible noise is thunder.The other distinct visual ‘Each of these motifs is indeed powerful in its on the page is a one-legged toy soldier holding a proper place, but it seems careless, if not danger- gun. In the context of the narrative develop- ous, to scatter them so promiscuously all around ments as they transpire the next morning, the woods’. In our view, their inclusion is hardly namely ‘Dad wasn’t there’ and Mum doesn’t casual or random. seem to know when he is coming back, the Given the current social and cultural context soldier suggests that the terrible noise of the and the realist frame to the text, it is not insignif- night before was not the storm, but the battle of icant that the plot in the narratives to which a domestic dispute – which is also a gender war – these fairy tale characters belong is precipitated that has left the soldier/Dad crippled. by family disruption. Jack belongs to a single- Unlike his protagonist, Browne here skirts parent family in dire financial straits, Cinderella is around the thorny forest of directly addressing an unloved orphan, and Snow White is the the fight. His strategy is reminiscent of John victim of a wealthy but dysfunctional blended

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family. Hansel and Gretel are abandoned by their parents and it would seem that Goldilocks finds comforts in the three bears’ house that she doesn’t enjoy at home. Jack and Goldilocks want the fruit cake in the basket Browne’s protagonist carries, which it transpires is a peace offering sent by the mother to the father who is at Grandma’s house. Perhaps they too desire the means to mend their families’ ills. On the one hand, the common feature of these tales might appear to rein- force ideological constructions of the family like the three bears’ nuclear household. On the other hand, the political subtexts that typify Browne’s oeuvre frequently subvert dominant ideology.Although all of these inter- texts are driven by some form of family collapse – and in Into the Forest,a fear of it – it is ‘what happens next’ that matters. How does each of these child characters deal with their circumstances? How does Browne’s protagonist deal with his? These questions raise the issue of agency,both in the narrative and in life. The opening frames of the narrative suggest that the boy has neither the knowledge nor the power to be agential. With the exception of his one choice to enter the forest when his mother has told him to take the longer, safer route, Browne’s protagonist is merely subject to the circumstances that afflict him. Even this choice is framed as a response to parental behaviour. As the protagonist explains, it is the absence of his father that causes him to take the dangerous route:‘But

12 / BOOKBIRD CULTURAL ORIENTEERING that day, for the first time, I chose the quick decide their fate for good or ill.The significance way. I wanted to be home in case Dad came of these intertexts depends on the child reader’s back.’ It seems that the unhappiness linked to knowledge of what will happen next. Browne’s parental behaviour leads children into danger- narrator does not intervene in their narrative ous places, particularly,the dangerous territory trajectory by giving them the cake they desire. of fairy tales. And yet, traversing these dangers His detachment is excused, even promoted, by is arguably resilience-building for the protago- the narrative, given that these children appear nist, despite his apparent helplessness. unreasonably demanding and are apparently well According to psychologists, a precondition for fed.This is less so for the characters in the final the knowledge, sense of control and optimism meeting, Hansel and Gretel, who are a good deal that resilience assumes is the existence of the more powerfully emblematic of the misery adverse circumstances which children must caused parental abandonment and therefore of survive (Richardson 2002, Flach 1988, 1997). the risks children face in family breakdown. In its inclusion of these intertexts, Into the Forest Gender politics inflect the implies that the various fairy-tale children must protagonist’s shift into a reach the conclusions indicated by the tell-tale female role and the signifiers hidden in the forest that surrounds alteration of the ending them (Jack’s beanstalk and the giant’s club, the three bears, their house, and the gingerbread In this respect, the characters in the fairy tale cottage respectively) without suffering any intertexts in Into the Forest do not fare equally. changes caused by intervention. This is unlike Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel and Jon Scieszka’s complete upending of fairy tales in Cinderella are present in the text only as picto- The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid rial allusions and Browne’s protagonist does not Tales (1993). Perhaps Browne’s protagonist, in engage in dialogue with them. This is hardly choosing the path that negotiates these stories in surprising, given that two of them are asleep, one order to simply pass them by, indicates his rejec- is imprisoned in a tower and Cinderella’s domes- tion of the scenarios they signify. tic entrapment typically keeps her at home. Moreover, the image of Prince Charming on his Browne’s protagonist can be steed reminds us that these fairy tale princesses seen as engaged in a quest are not agential in their own survival but that he must undertake to dependent on being rescued from the circum- reunite his family stances of which they are victims. Despite the protagonist’s lack of direct interaction with these However, this rejection is not simply dismissive. stories, their gender politics inflect his shift into a Browne’s protagonist can equally be seen as female role and the alteration of the tale’s ending. engaged in a quest, through these stories, or an This move is consonant with the conspicuous interpretative navigation of them, that he must absence of the male hero embodied by the undertake to reunite his family.There is a clever woodcutter as well as the narrative absence of his metafictiveness to this strategy because, while the nemesis, the wolf, as male malefactor. child protagonist navigates fictive stories (fairy Unlike the passive female princesses, Jack and tales) in order to understand his real-world fears, Goldilocks do make choices which ultimately the reader of Into the Forest is occupied by the same

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task. Browne’s text has become, in this equation, book The Tunnel. Described on the dust jacket as the next step outwards in a spiralling pattern of ‘an original fairytale’, this story also employs the intertextuality that has a potential to speak to mid-plot gender switch whereby the active, fear- parental separations affecting real child readers. In less brother is turned to stone (made passive) and some respects, then, the text becomes a ‘how to’ thus requires his bookish and nervy sister to take book, though this is not by any means clear-cut. the active and heroic role in rescuing him. This On the contrary,the narrative seems to invite chil- reversal of fairy tale (and real world) gender dren to revise the stories they have been told in stereotypes also acts as the precursor to healing order to suit their circumstances,just as this protag- an inter-gender familial breach, although in The onist re-genders the ‘Little Red Riding Hood’tale. Tunnel it is between brother and sister, rather than husband and wife, as it is here.The second The narrative seems to intertextual reference in Into the Forest is to the invite children to revise the Hansel and Gretel Browne drew in his 1981 stories they have been told retelling of the classic fairy tale. They wear the to suit their circumstances same clothes and are drawn in the same pose. However, against this carefully duplicated repeti- Ulrich Beck claims that in contemporary ‘risk tion, they are notably reversed. The boy is now society’, individualisation means that we are on the left, his sister on the right. obliged to construct our own reflexive biogra- This switch is a compelling precursor to phies by finding and inventing new certainties. Browne’s male protagonist cross-dressing in Red Individualisation ‘is dependent on decision- Riding Hood’s cloak, albeit in the gender- making as it assumes agency, the ability to shape neutral form of a duffle-coat. Cross-dressing one’s destiny through self-determination and poses a powerful challenge to the operations of identification’ and, thus, the construction of a the binary logics that produce gender difference. personal biographical trajectory that is ‘self- Wearing the jacket disregards the social norms rather than socially-produced’ (Lupton 1999). that direct gender behaviour and which, as Beck On the one hand, this is liberating, since we are would have it, are no longer practical or desirable no longer as constrained by social class or gender in risk society.It also signifies that new problems as we were once. On the other hand, uncertain- require new solutions. The resolution of the ties and risks proliferate and the decline of old boy’s anxiety involves a symbolic acceptance of certainties and tradition means that the path femininity.This is not depicted as transgressive; it through life – including family life – is no longer is depicted as providing the appropriate solution clearly signposted. It is significant, therefore, that to the child’s problems. In addition, this subject when Browne’s protagonist leaves the forest path positioning is directly embodied by the colour and becomes lost, he both ‘becomes’ Little Red scheme deployed in the text, whereby red and Riding Hood and revises the ending of the tradi- blue are the mother’s colours, blue and green are tional tale. Gender – or the disruption of gender the father’s colours and yellow, green and blue – is crucial to this metamorphosis. stripes are the grandma’s colours.The protagonist The significance of this gender reversal is in most illustrations combines all these colours in extended by two self-referential intertexts. In the his clothing but when he dons Red Riding first of these, it is clear that this red jacket is the Hood’s coat he wears only his mother’s colour- same as that worn by the sister in Browne’s 1989 coded textual position.

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Putting on the coat also marks the boy’s first experience of fear and he recalls his grandma’s story about a bad wolf. He begins to feel he is being followed, and indeed the wolf lurks in the background of this frame (which is where he stays, perhaps suggesting that the fear of family breakdown is unfounded). It would seem that in putting on the coat, the boy symbolically, but unconsciously, accepts the narrative trajectory of the fairy tale. However, in It would seem that in trying to outrun the fear this creates, he loses the putting on the coat, the path – and the plot.What follows is no longer pre- boy symbolically, but determined by the narrative formula of the fairy unconsciously, accepts the tale, a departure already anticipated by the alter- narrative trajectory of ation of the gender positioning of the original. In leaving the path, the boy alters the ending of the the fairy tale original story.

No. 3 – 2005 / 15 CULTURAL ORIENTEERING

The significance of this revision is contextu- Thus the text pivots on a double debunking of alised by the uncertainty that surrounds the boy’s prescribed plots, the plots of fairy tales and the arrival at Grandma’s house.Although the way is by cultural plots directing gender roles. The first now obliterated by snow, he finds her house at entails the diminution of male power narratives last.The voice that answers his knock at the door typically embodied by wolves and woodcutters; doesn’t ‘really sound like Grandma’s voice’ and the the second involves the boy adopting female- boy is ‘terrified’. At this suspenseful moment, the coded behaviour in conveying the cake which boy’s uncertainty and fear of the unknown are succeeds in reuniting the family. What this ending illuminates is that although male readers The text pivots on a double of fairy tales are typically empowered by the debunking of prescribed male heroes of fairy tales, the flip-side of this plots, the plots of fairy agency is that fairy tales have little to offer boys tales and the cultural plots in relation to coping with the anxieties directing gender roles surrounding parental problems that are out of their control.This is, of course, the position chil- opposed to the reader’s certainty and knowledge, dren usually find themselves in with regard to directed by fairy tale structures, that the voice that marital breakdown, and equally the position the answers belongs to the wolf. But it is not the wolf male protagonist occupies here. In fairy tales, after all and, instead, either belongs to Grandma, boys do not have the (dubious) luxury of passiv- her voice altered by a case of the sniffles, or to the ity; typically they must intervene in the story’s boy’s father (another instance of gender ambigu- trajectory. In the case of this narrative, resolution ity).The disruption of the narrative and, therefore, has been achieved by a circuituous route, which reader expectations is expressive of the culture of has avoided moments of heroism but, regardless, this tale’s retelling, a culture which Beck says is no has allowed the boy to get out of the psycholog- longer governed by rigid and traditional biogra- ical woods of fears about parents. phical narratives. In such a society, the ending of The final focus on loving family relationships the story is no longer fixed and we must choose is in many respects the balm for the harsh our own ‘ending’.That ending is the product of commentary proposed at the beginning of this decisions and risks undertaken in negotiating reading – that happy families are a fairy tale. But one’s way through the risk society. this contentment is never far from its opposite, as

Children’s Books Anthony Browne (2004) Into the Forest London:Walker Anthony Browne (2003)The Shape Game New York:Farrar, Straus and Giroux Anthony Browne (1997) The Tunnel London:Walker Anthony Browne (1986) Piggybook London: Julia MacRae Anthony Browne (1981) Hansel and Gretel London: Julia MacRae John Burningham (1991) Aldo London: Jonathan Cape Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (1812) republished as Grimms’ Fairy Tales (trans Edward Taylor) Harmondsworth: Penguin (1971) Charles Perrault (1697) republished as The Fairy Tales (trans Angela Carter) New York:Bard (1977) Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith (1993)The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales London: Puffin

16 / BOOKBIRD CULTURAL ORIENTEERING the final image on the back cover illustrates. It foregrounds two central trees: one has healthy bark with a love-heart carved into it, while the gnarled bark of the other shows the face of a wolf, muzzle raised in a howl, as an emblem of the anxiety that haunts this difficult and ambiguous text. Here is Browne’s final reminder for children living in uncertain times that happily ever after might not be, after all.

References Beck, Ulrich (1992) Risk Society:Towards a New Modernity London: Sage Bradford, Clare (1998) ‘Playing with Father:Anthony Browne’s Picture Books and the Masculine’ Children’s Liter- ature in Education 29, 2: 79–96 Flach, Frederic (1988) Resilience: Discovering a New Strength at Times of Stress New York: Ballantine Flach, Frederic (1997) Resilience: How to Bounce Back when the Going Gets Tough New York: Hatherleigh Lupton, Deborah (1999) Risk London and New York: Routledge Nodelman, Perry and Mavis Reimer (2003) The Pleasures of Children’s Literature Boston, MA:Allyn and Bacon Richardson, Glenn E (2002) ‘The Metatheory of Resilience and Resiliency’ Journal of Clinical Psychology 58 (3): 307–21 Stephens, John and Ken Watson (1994) From to Literary Theory Sydney: St Clair Sutton, Roger (2004) ‘The Red Book and Into the Forest: Metafiction for beginners’ The New York Times, Section 7 (14 November): 22

Illustrations Illustrations from Into the Forest by Anthony Browne. Illustrations © 2004 Anthony Browne. Reproduced by permission of Walker Books Ltd, London SE11 5HJ.

‘Arouna, the Small Champion’ Determined Arouna, smallest of the competitors in a bicycle race, works hard to convince the organisers to accept him. The onlookers ridicule him. But the daring boy does not give up. This inspiring story is illustrated in gouache by Taofik Atoro, known for his expressive, realistic art. Hortense Mayaba (Taofik Atoro illus) AROUNA, THE SMALL CHAMPION ‘Tadjin and the Swallows’ Cotonou: Editions Streams of Africa 2003 24pp Paul and Tatiana collaborate on a charming book ISBN 9991950141 (fiction 8–12) about doing the ‘right’ thing. Tadjin lets his caged Paul Zannou and Tatiana Balzer Zanou swallows fly free. He very much wants to keep them at his home, but he accepts the fact that it is TADJIN AND THE SWALLOWS better that they are not captives. Cotonou: Editions Streams of Africa 2003 24pp ISBN 9991950192 (picturebook 5–8) René Georges Bada

No. 3 – 2005 / 17 In introducing picturebooks that show children creating new traditions, Vivian Yenika-Agbaw argues that not all African cultural practices should be followed unquestioningly

any anthropologists would agree that culture is the

in Two African Picturebook Folktales in Two backbone of every community.As Ngugi (1997) notes, M it is ‘a product of a people’s history,[and] ... also a reflec- tion of that history’. Culture has sustained us Africans from generation to generation and strengthened our sense of self and our understanding of our place within the global community. There is no question then about its relevance in our lives. However, culture also perpetuates ways of seeing, behaving, understanding and knowing among groups of people.As these practices prevail over a long period of time, they become traditions that may be hard to challenge,

Revising Traditional Practices Revising Traditional practices that people cling to without question. This phenomenon seems to be true in several West African villages. For example, in recent by VIVIAN YENIKA-AGBAW years we hear that young girls from some parts of Africa are being punished severely either for acts of passion or for outright refusal to undergo circumcision rites of passage, which were the custom in the past.This has led to all kinds of conflicts, global and local, which could perhaps have been prevented if the elders had re-examined rituals of female circumcision inherited long ago from our ancestors. What makes it all even more complicated is the fact that well-

Vivian Yenika-Agbaw is an intentioned Afrocentric movements in the West uphold all African associate professor at Bloomsburg village practices as ‘authentic’, which seems to mean that they should University, Pennsylvania, where she teaches children’s and young not be interrogated or adjusted to suit contemporary reality.Afrocen- adult literature 18 / BOOKBIRD AFRICAN TRADITIONAL PRACTICES tric scholars, like Asante, argue that these village practices, in a way,are the only significant aspects of Culture has sustained us African culture not tarnished by Western colonial Africans from generation influence (Asante 1980). According to such Afro- to generation and centric scholars, village cultural practices retain the strengthened our true flavour of African tradition and have been understanding of our place faithfully adhered to for centuries. Although, as in the global community Oyebade (2003) remarks, Afrocentricity searches ‘for those values that will make man relate to man in a humanistic way and not in an imperialistic or exploitative way’, its persistent adherence to pre-colonial ways of doing things can be problematic. Should African children accept every single tradition that has been handed down to them by their elders? It is true that some traditional practices have sustained Africans for generations, but it seems to me that others are so inflexible and outright unjust that it would be irresponsible not to interrogate them. It would be better if elders assisted children to identify and re-examine cultural practices that are no longer useful within their different communities, as they guide them on how to create new traditions that do not violate our African ‘cultural integrity’ or disrupt our staunch belief in ancestors. In so doing, children could learn to pay attention to differences that position us as ‘others’ within our local communities and make us targets for practices that simply reflect the dominant ways of understanding, knowing and valuing our humanity. In recent years some authors of children’s books have attempted to accomplish this feat in their folktales.At A child protagonist the centre of the folktales by Obinkaram Echewa and sharing space with adults, Nelda LaTeef, for example, is a child protagonist shar- negotiating relationships ing space within rural settings with adults,negotiating with them, and reasoning relationships with them, and actually reasoning with with them to rethink them to rethink certain dominant cultural practices. certain cultural practices

The Ancestor Tree

In The Ancestor Tree (1994) Obinkaram Echewa brilliantly depicts the strug- gle between old and new ways in Amapu,a West African village community. In the story an old man, Nna-nna, who regularly tells stories to the village children and showers them with his ‘blessings’, cannot have an ancestor tree planted in his honour when he dies, because tradition forbids childless people from having trees planted in their names in the Forest of the Ances- tors,and he has no living biological children.Worse yet,his navel tree ‘will be cut down from the Forest of the Living’. In essence childless people should not be remembered, regardless of their contributions to the community.

No. 3 – 2005 / 19 AFRICAN TRADITIONAL PRACTICES

This is a tradition that baffles the young children he has spent his entire life taking care of, and they are forced to question the usefulness of that tradition.Wasn’t Nna-nna their surrogate grandfather? Has he not been there for them at any time of the day? Refusing to accept this aspect of their village custom, they consult with the elders Echewa makes blind and eventually plant a tree in his name. adherence to tradition Echewa weaves this tale as honestly as possible, as appear foolish even to he makes blind adherence to tradition appear fool- the elders ish even to the elders, who at times lose their temper when asked about details of the customs:

Inside their homes, when they were with their fathers and mothers or uncles and aunts, the children kept asking,‘How come Nna-nna can’t have a tree in the Forest of the Ancestors?’ ‘It is an ancient custom,’Abindu’s father said when Abindu asked him. ‘How come there is such a custom?’Abindu asked. ‘That’s just the way things are. Custom is custom is custom,’Abindu’s father replied. ‘Do customs ever change?’Abindu asked. ‘Enough questions!’Abindu’s father replied angrily.

It is the village tradition, is the only answer the children are offered. Traditions are fine, but when it makes people outsiders in their own villages, one begins to wonder. Sindima (1990) remarks that,‘in African thought, community includes the living, the dead, and the unborn’. Quoting Dickson, he continues:

ancestors are important in African culture because ‘they . . . give a sense of solidarity and security . . . mediate between God and man [and] remind the living of those virtues which define the morally good life.’

20 / BOOKBIRD AFRICAN TRADITIONAL PRACTICES

Would it not make sense then to honour Nna- to honor.Beginning today,only people who have nna, the village storyteller and caregiver? Should lived honorable lives, people whose spirits are he go unrecognised in village history, despite his noble, will have trees planted for them in the endless contributions, simply because he is child- Forest of the Ancestors. Ezi, amuru indeed! less? The intergenerational link between the old man and the young people becomes an effective The Hunter and the Ebony Tree tool to address an injustice that had been perpet- uated by this tradition for a long time. Nelda LaTeef’s The Hunter and the Ebony Tree Echewa’s story demonstrates the need for (2002), though not as compelling as Echewa’s tale, change.As the reader follows the evolution of the depicts a similar situation. In this story, a story,he/she observes the stupidity of adhering to concerned father must ‘choose the right husband customs that perhaps never made sense, even for his daughter’.According to the village custom, though they continue to be upheld in the it is the father who must initiate this process, but community.When the children succeed in effect- LaTeef adds a twist to the tale.After deciding that ing change in this community after meeting with it was time for his daughter to be betrothed, the the Amapu village council and convincing them, father ‘shared his concerns with her’ and actually the reader is filled with a sense of joy.The eldest consulted with her on how they should proceed. member of the council, Ozurumba, proud of What makes the story even more fascinating is their dedication to Nna-nna and their commit- that he listens to her suggestions carefully and ment to social justice remarks: does not quickly dismiss her as only a girl. The girl participates in the courtship process, Teach and learn. Usually,adults teach and chil- something unheard of in the past. She provides dren learn, but in this case, we have the useful advice to her father on how to proceed, opposite. Children are teaching and adults are making it easier for him to perform his task as an learning.You children have taught us that elder. To her father she confides that she ‘will customs have a beginning, customs can change, marry the man whose arrow can penetrate the and sometimes, customs come to an end.We trunk of the ebony tree’. She both understands have decided to end one custom and begin her father’s sense that it is his duty to find an another. We will plant a tree for Nna-nna in appropriate husband for her as tradition dictates the Forest of the Ancestors. It is true that he has and appreciates his willingness to include her in no children, but it is also obvious that he has the process.As a true African child, she does not left something of himself in all of you, which, disrespect him. He is not only her father, but also after all, is what it means to be an ancestor. an elder and deserves nothing less. Rather, they work as a team, even then she knows she must The children have finally made a difference in a defer to him whenever necessary. community that has practised for ages and without Many Africans may doubt the credibility of the question customs that exclude honourable father–daughter partnership depicted in this folk- members of their own village.Their action liberates tale, especially since it is by an outsider, but it is the elders as well, for as Ozurumba acknowledges: clear that Nelda LaTeef wants to make a point about involving females in the process of choosing We have also decided that, from this day onward, their spouses.And so,instead of naively challenging we will change the way we select which ancestors the arranged marriage custom that is prevalent in

No. 3 – 2005 / 21 AFRICAN TRADITIONAL PRACTICES

traditional African societies, she provides an alternative Many Africans may way that acknowledges the girl and at the same time doubt the credibility of does not threaten or disrupt the community. LaTeef the father–daughter gives the girl agency throughout the story, even though partnership depicted in she is a child and female. She makes it possible for her to this folktale accidentally meet with the man she eventually marries, to show the role that fate plays in such circumstances:

As the hunter stopped by the village well to quench his thirst, there, draw- ing water, was the girl.With a shy smile, she offered him a drink from her jug. She had never done that for a stranger before.The hunter gazed into her eyes as he drank the cold water.When he finished drinking, he knew his search for a bride had come to an end.

In a sense, rather than marrying a man who just won a contest, she ends up with someone she had earlier shown kindness to and perhaps is attracted to – a ‘husband who was worthy of her’ and had used all his ingenuity to win her hand in marriage. This folktale, which LaTeef got from an old Zarma griot, like Echewa’s, rethinks tradition.Again a child becomes instrumental in a major decision process, this time in the village of Tombakonda. Some Africans may be sceptical about children tampering with our traditions. This is because most of us seem to pay attention mainly to the strengths of the culture and never closely examine its weaknesses. And of course, a communal lifestyle in the village is much to be preferred to the individualistic quest for materialism that is pervasive in cities and towns highly influenced by

22 / BOOKBIRD AFRICAN TRADITIONAL PRACTICES colonialism and Western culture.This notwithstanding, undue reverence for tradition can impede communal and individual growth, which in turn can be detrimental to otherwise thriving African village communities.

Conclusion

If we do not examine past practices and make decisions regarding which traditions to maintain and which ones no longer serve our human ideals, we could find ourselves excluding and oppressing a good segment in our communities.As Ngugi (1997) rightly observes,

Certain normative values in a so-called national or communal culture could be reflecting all sorts of contradictions of which it is a product. In many African societies for instance, there are proverbs that essentially belittle women.And yet proverbs are supposed to contain the kernel of collective wisdom.

It is true that proverbs communicate cultural understandings about a group of people, but I am not sure African women would want to hang around permanently for their husbands and sons to ‘belittle’ them in the name of tradition. I would suggest that Africans do what Aegerter (2000) advises in her article on womanism – and that is to ‘revise and retain African traditions’ for the benefit of all segments of the community. How do we effectively challenge the injustices of colonialism when we are unable to address similar How do we challenge the concerns about our local cultural practices? Such injustices of colonialism rigidity stifles progress, oppresses people and when we are unable to encourages massive exodus from otherwise thriv- address similar concerns ing communities. Finally, it reduces the individual about our local cultural to nothing, as he/she abandons all that is familiar practices? and begins to wander all over the world seeking for another place to call home. As Echewa remarks in an interview (Kauffman 1995), we do not need to ‘sanctify all traditions simply because they were passed down’ to us. We need to uphold those that serve our communities well and reaffirm the members’ beliefs in our humanity.To stay strong, healthy,productive and alive, we need to constantly monitor our actions within our respec- tive communities and examine our customs for loopholes. If we do not engage actively in revising practices that are detrimental to our collec- tive survival, our children will not only draw these to our attention, but may be forced to change the traditions however they choose to. This can be dangerous!

No. 3 – 2005 / 23 AFRICAN TRADITIONAL PRACTICES

Children’s Books Discussed T Obinkaram Echewa (Christy Hale illus) (1994) The Ancestor Tree New York:Lodestar Books Nelda LaTeef, (2002) The Hunter and the Ebony Tree North Kingstown, RI: Moon Mountain

References Aegerter, L (2000) ‘Southern Africa, Womanism, and Postcoloniality: A Dialectal Approach’ in The Post-colonial Condition of African Literature (Daniel Gover, John Contch-Morgan and Jane Bryce eds) pp 67–73 New Jersey:Africa World Press Asante, M (1980) Afrocentricity:The Theory of Social Change Buffalo, NY:Amulefi Publishing Asante, M (1985) ‘Afrocentricity and Culture’ in African Culture: The Rhythm of Unity (M Asante and K Asante eds), pp 3–12 Westport, CT: Greenwood Press Kauffman, J (1995) ‘T. Obinkaram Echewa: Telling Stories in Three Dimensions’ (an interview) http://www.rambles.net/echewa_stories.html (accessed 2 March 2005) Ngugi,W (1997) Writers in Politics Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Oyebade, Bayo (2003) ‘African Studies and the Afrocentric Paradigm – A Critique’ Journal of Black Studies 21 (2): 233–8 www.jstor.org (accessed 3 November 2003) Sindima, Harvey (1990) ‘Liberalism and African Culture’ Journal of Black Studies 21 (2):190–209 www.jstor.org (accessed 13 November, 2003)

This is a joy, not only for children but for adults too. Poems gloriously and variously decorated by leading artists from 32 countries spill out from under its enticing cover. Each double-page opening is a source of wonder and mystery, and it is fun to try to guess who the illustrators are or from which country the illustrations come. Each of the artists was asked to illustrate a piece of text of his or her own choosing, and the choice is often a poem, rhyme, song or street game significant in the artist’s own childhood. Many are in the original language, accompanied by a translation into English, quite a few are traditional verses from the artists’ cultures, and Rosemary Wells, Jainal Amambing and Anthony Browne have each contributed a poem written by themselves. Some have contributed reflective pieces Patricia Aldana (ed) (various illustrators) such as the poems illustrated by Nasrin Khosravi (Iran), Isol

(Argentina), (Austria). Others are rambunctious and fun like Indian Pulak Biswas’s choice of ‘Rhinoceros’, Bra` zilian Under the Spell of the Moon: Art for Angela Lago’s choice of two short riddles, and Czech Kveta` Pacovská’s Children from the World’s Great Illustrators surreal frog rhyme and even more surreal frog. A fantastic variety of styles is presented here, and it’s almost a Zhang’s white silhouettes shock, having contemplated Ange Toronto: Groundwood Books 2004 accompanying a traditional Chinese rhyme, to turn the page to see Nicaragua’s Luis Garay’s spare watermelon, and after that the gorgeous 0 88899 559 8 (anthology of poems and rhymes, all ages) flow of Noemi Villamuza’s field of green holding up a contented baby in a hat. And then there are Piet Grobler’s birds … but I must stop. This postcard has become a letter, but a necessary letter to extol a beautiful publication. And a worthy one: IBBY receives 15% of the price of every book sold! Valerie Coghlan

24 / BOOKBIRD Australian Titles in French Animal Kingdom Translating the When books are translated, their titles sometimes change. Helen Frank considers how Australian book titles featuring animals have been treated when the books are translated into French

hen translating for the specific audience of child readers in another culture, translators1 negotiate and manipulate Wthe text to expand and explain the message. Previous studies have identified specific ‘universal’ features of translation as explicitation, simplification, avoidance of repetition and grammatical standardisation (Even-Zohar 1990;Toury 1995; Kenny 1998).Toury insists that the drive for acceptance in the target culture influences the decisions made by translators who play an important social and cultural role. Studies by Kenny show that translations are manipulated so that they reflect what is routine or habit in the target language, a process both expected and easily tolerated in children’s literature. Kenny also emphasises that translators tend to follow a policy of ‘sani- tisation’ in cases where material is considered unsuitable or unedifying for child readers.

Animals are sufficiently common in titles of children’s books to allow analysis of specific stylistic patterns in their original and translated forms

Books about animals are a commercially successful genre, and the occurrence of animals2 in titles of children’s books is sufficiently common to allow analysis of specific stylistic patterns in their original and translated forms. This paper focuses on the translation of titles from (Australian) English to French, in order to highlight patterns of explicitation, simplification and generic prioritisation, and to deter- mine the influence of the original title on the construction of the by HELEN T FRANK translated title. It analyses all references to animals in the titles of 20th-century Australian children’s fiction books (for ages 8+, picture- books excluded) that have been translated into French. The titles derive from a defined corpus of 20th-century Australian works for children in French translation (Frank 2003). There are clear limitations inherent in focusing predominantly on the linguistic and stylistic aspects of titles, but the fact is that readers Helen Frank is an honorary research fellow in the Department of French, (and critics) are not privy to the reason for the choice of a particular Italian and Spanish at the title or translation, nor are they to know whether the author has had University of Melbourne. She is also a secondary teacher and librarian TRANSLATING THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

some say in the choice of the translated title. cal questions about the degree of manipulation Some general principles can, none the less, be and adaptation of the source text, but we can established to account for the incidence of expect translators to show varying degrees of Australian-to-French title change from studying textual elaboration and explicitation consistent the titles themselves. with the level of sophistication of the target audience. Variant English titles Why are titles changed by translators? Before we consider the issue of title change in translation, let’s look first at the phenomenon of This study makes three observations on changes variant titles within English-speaking cultures. of titles of Australian children’s books in French The story published as Big Red (1953) in the translation. The first is that translators seem to Australian edition and Kangaroo (1953) in the wish to render the text as transparent as possible American edition serves as a typical example of for child readers in another culture. Translators the use of explicitation when books move into thus take into consideration the age of the other cultures. The same pattern occurs when intended audience and the appropriateness of the Fly into Danger (1977, US) becomes The Bird level of readability of the original text in relation Smugglers (1979, AUS); Ajax the Warrior (1953, to this new audience. In cases where the original UK) becomes Ajax, Golden Dog of the Australian title is considered too difficult or ‘foreign’, the Bush (1953, US); Seashores and Shadows (1985, translator will resort to forms of explicitation to AUS) becomes Sharks in the Shadows (1988, UK) help the reader. If the translator considers the and Shadow Shark (1988, US). In these examples, the animal is not named in the original, but the Translators seem to wish subsequent editions for English-speaking audi- to render the text as ences in other cultures do include the animal. transparent as possible Where an animal is present in the original title, for child readers in then the drive for explicitation has been satisfied another culture and the transferred title retains the animal: Dingo: The Story of an Outlaw (1945, US; 1957, UK) title appropriate and understandable to readers, becomes White Ears the Outlaw: The Story of a then it is likely that the title will not be changed Dingo (1949, AUS). The consistency of the and will be translated literally.A good example is pattern of title transfer in these examples the immensely popular A Bear Called Paddington, strongly suggests that translators are intent on which is literally translated in French as Un ours signalling the genre of each work to readers. nommé Paddington, because the criterion of Moreover, this feature of the transfer process is explicitness has already been satisfied: we know not unique to foreign language translation.Argu- that Paddington is a bear. The same thing ing that the values of texts are changed when happens the other way around: Histoire de Babar, transferred in place and time, Pym (1992) le petit éléphant becomes The Story of Babar the proposes that ‘improvement’ of the transferred Little Elephant. Similar examples are Thomas the text should become a guiding force in the Tank Engine who becomes Thomas la locomotive process of translation. Such improvement when and Bob the Builder who becomes Bob le bricoleur. translating for child readers certainly raises ethi- It appears that it is a common and longstanding

26 / BOOKBIRD TRANSLATING THE ANIMAL KINGDOM stylistic convention in children’s titles (whether about animals or not) to tell the reader the name and nature of the protagonist. In the case of original titles that do not designate the animal, or consist of a proper name only, translators seem to add the species in order to explain to child readers the exact nature of the animal protagonist. Such explicitation is obvious in the translation of Lassie Come Home = Lassie, chien fidèle [Lassie, the faithful dog], Black Beauty = Prince Noir, souvenirs d’un cheval [Black Prince, memories of a horse], and The Yearling = Jody et le faon [Jody and the fawn]. Secondly, changes in titles also seem to be designed to accommodate the generic expectations of readers in the target culture. In target cultures where genres featuring animals are successful, the incidence of titles highlighting animals can be Changes in titles seem to expected to be high. If the genre of animal stories is be designed to low in national production and other genres are accommodate the generic more prevalent or successful, cultural preferences expectations of readers may be accommodated in changes of title to reflect animal stories (to boost the genre in the national holdings) or to reflect a preferred genre (to assure continuing success). This means that French title translations may reflect choices that conform to the linguistic norms of the relevant genre in French children’s literature. And in the third place, French publishers have the option to highlight Australian specificity ‘upfront’ in translated titles if they think French readers are interested in far-away and ‘exotic’ settings. For the translator, the ‘strangeness’ of the source text is marked explic- itly in references to the Australian landscape, climate, Publishers can either history and people. Conscious of the need to highlight or downplay maximise local sales, publishers can either highlight Australian specificity or downplay this specificity consistent with the type and degree of ‘otherness’ that has proved successful in translation.Where specificity is considered a liability,Australianness is not expected to ‘trans- late’ to titles.

Australian titles in French translation

Table 1 (see page 29) shows Australian titles that conform to the first pattern (see panel overleaf).There are four titles that mention kangaroos, a dingo and a wild horse, but there are no koalas, crocodiles, platypuses, wombats, Tasmanian devils, wallabies, emus and kookaburras in these titles: in other words, there is very little emphasis on Australia in the orig- inal titles.The wording of titles by Australian publishers may seek to avoid cultural specificity in order to maximise the appeal to a variety of readers

No. 3 – 2005 / 27 TRANSLATING THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

Animal names follow three patterns in titles of children’s books in English and French, as the following examples show:

Pattern 1: Generic name of animal The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Clive Eats Alligators The Curse of the Turtle

Le lion = The Lion3 Le renard dans l’île = The Fox in the Island

Pattern 2: Animals with proper name only Lassie Come Home – not possible to infer species Black Beauty from title Blinky Bill Snoopy Crin-Blanc = The Wild White Stallion

Pattern 3: Proper name (or adjective) plus The Tale of Peter Rabbit species name A Bear Called Paddington Skippy the Bush Kangaroo The Muddle-headed Wombat Old Bear Harry the Dirty Dog A Budgie Called Fred KPO la panthère = KPO the Leopard Sama, prince des éléphants = Sama L’âne Culotte = Culotte the Donkey

in different cultures, or may reflect a preference for ‘literariness’, where an emphasis on the metaphorical or poetic overrides issues relating to cultural specificity. The question remains as to the level of interest by French publishers in following the same patterns. There is a tendency for the same animals to be named in the French titles, except in the case of the four titles (at the bottom of the table) that represent ‘free’ translations, where the translated titles are substantially different from the original and omit the species. Australian specificity is suppressed in Broome Dog = La longue marche de Cooky [Cooky’s long walk], where the specific location and generic species are replaced by terms referring to an event and to a proper name highly suggestive of an animal (‘Cooky’); and in Tiger in the Bush = Le vallon secret [The secret vale], where the translation shifts the emphasis from the animal and place to a different and ‘secret’ location, thus reinforcing the genre of adventure. The suppression of ‘tiger’avoids ambiguity as to the nature of the animal, as the story concerns a Tasmanian tiger and not the implied African tiger.

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Table 1.Titles and genres of Australian children’s fiction featuring animals

Author/s Genre English title French title

Boomer:The Life of a Clark, D Animal story Joë sous les eucalyptes Kangaroo Warrigal:The Story of a Downie, J Animal story Warrigal, cheval sauvage Wild Horse Gleitzman, M Humour Battering Rams La guerre des moutons Jennings, P Ned Kelly and the Keneally,T Fantasy La cité des abeilles City of the Bees

Measday,S Mystery/suspense The Giant Spiders Les araignées géantes

Nilsson, E Realistic The 89th Kitten Le 89e chaton

Nilsson, E Realistic Graffiti Dog Le chien graffiti

Patchett, M Animal story The Proud Eagles L’enfant et les aigles

Paulsen, S Mystery/suspense The Stray Cat Le chat errant

Pedley,E Animal story Dot and the Kangaroo Nine et le kangourou

Rodda, E Fantasy Pigs Might Fly Cochon vole!

Thiele, C Animal story Magpie Island Pie l’oiseau solitaire

Thiele, C Adventure Shadow Shark Le requin fantôme

Chauncy,N Adventure Tiger in the Bush Le vallon secret

Black Lightning:The Clark, D Animal story Silky,roi de la jungle Story of a Leopard Dingo: The story of an Lamond, H Animal story Histoire d’un hors-la-loi Outlaw La longue marche de Small, M Adventure Broome Dog Cooky

No. 3 – 2005 / 29 TRANSLATING THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

In the title Boomer:The Life of a Kangaroo = Joë sous les eucalyptes4 [Joey under the eucalypts], a proper name ‘Joë’ is derived from the French term for a young kangaroo ‘un joey’ and replaces the Australian colloquial term for a kangaroo (‘Boomer’). The additional reference to eucalypts also serves to situate the story in Australia.This title clearly illustrates that a change in title does not necessarily reflect a change in genre, as is the case with the title devoid of Australian referents, Black Lightning:The Story of a Leopard = Silky, roi de la jungle [Silky, king of the jungle]. While the main title cleverly alludes to the animal’s speed in the use of ‘lightning’, the subtitle clearly explains the nature of the reference.The level of reading sophistication of children determines how well they can grasp allusive and metaphorical titles, but here the English subtitle has rendered the allusion explicit in any case for the child reader.The translation does not name the species but employs a name highly suggestive of an animal (‘Silky’), particularly when combined with the added references to status (‘roi’) and ‘exotic’ location (‘la jungle’).The translation makes sense but lacks the explicitation of the original. The seventeen titles in Table 1 represent six genres.The adherence by French translators to the literal translation of the animal in the majority of the titles (13 out of 17) strongly suggests that the French title translators are wording of the original title is paramount to transla- not primarily interested tors as a guide to the construction of French titles. In in reflecting the genre of this regard, French title translators are not primarily each work, but are interested in reflecting the genre of each work, but are following the pattern of following the pattern of the original work.Were they the original work interested in signalling the genre to readers more succinctly so that there is no doubt as to the classifica- tion, we would expect the translated titles to be worded more freely. The second pattern of title (see panel, p 28) consists of wording in the original that contains no explicit reference to animals, even though the stories feature animals as central characters or use them to pursue envi- ronmental themes. This category includes titles which employ personal names and attributes to refer to animals that feature prominently in the stories. In addition, colloquial expressions and ‘free’ titles that suggest very little of a book’s content are included. The first section of Table 2 shows French translations for ten Australian titles that consist of forms of proper names. The second section shows Significant patterns can French translations for four colloquial and ‘free’ titles that do not contain the proper name or the species of be seen in the choice of animal in English. For these 14 original titles without translated titles animals in Table 2, seven translated titles explicitly name the species where not mentioned in the original and the remaining

30 / BOOKBIRD TRANSLATING THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

Table 2. Original and translated titles and genres with generic animals in bold italics

Author/s Genre English title French title

Le merveilleux cheval Aldridge, J Animal story The Marvellous Mongolian mongol Jennings, P and Humour The Slobberers L’attaque des vers géants Gleitzman, M Mary,la rivière Thiele, C Historical River Murray Mary et le serpent Grand-roux, seigneur de la Lamond, H Animal story Big Red brousse Les aventures de Magic Lindsay,N Fantasy The Magic Pudding Pudding

Patchett, M Animal story Ajax the Warrior Ajax le guerrier

Patchett, M Animal story Tam the Untamed Tam l’indompté

Patchett, M Animal story Wild Brother Frère sauvage

Thiele, C Animal story Storm Boy On l’appelait Tempête

Blinky Bill, the Quaint Wall, D Fantasy Blinky Bill le koala Little Australian

Jennings, P and Humour Croaked La grenouille tueuse Gleitzman, M

Patchett, M Animal story In a Wilderness Mirri chien sauvage

Phipson, J Adventure Fly into Danger Un vol mouvementé

Wheatley,N Family Five Times Dizzy Une chèvre pour Yaya

seven French titles do not name animals at all.An equal divide in the inci- dence of naming and not naming animals in French glosses the fact that significant patterns can be seen in the choice of translated titles. For potential readers of these Australian books there are no clues as to the nature of the Mongolian, the Slobberers and Blinky Bill, and familiar expressions such as ‘croaked’ (with reference to frogs or dying) and ‘five times dizzy’ have more than one meaning and may not neces-

No. 3 – 2005 / 31 TRANSLATING THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

sarily have an equivalent in French.Where the Australian titles do not tell readers whether these names and expressions refer to people, animals or things, the translated titles do. French titles for these works explicitly name the animals featuring in the story, particularly where colloquial expressions and vague references are concerned. French titles not only highlight animals absent from the source title but also leave no doubt as to the nature of the referent: the Mongolian is a Mongolian horse, the Slobberers are giant worms, Blinky Bill is a koala,‘croaked’ refers to frogs and ‘five times dizzy’ to a goat,‘a wilder- ness’ is displaced in favour of a wild dog, and the onomatopoeic and stylistically difficult River Murray Mary becomes a simplified listing of Mary, river and snake. On the other hand, the remaining seven translated titles in Table 2, unexpectedly, do not mention animals and are literal or near-literal translations.5 Apart from one near-literal translation that adds informa- tion to clarify the colloquial Australian term for a large kangaroo (‘big red’) and to connote rural Australia (‘la brousse’ [the outback]), there is no evidence of intention to be explicit in naming the generic animal; rather the translations show reliance on the original title, and where the original titles contain proper names, the French titles retain the names in their original form or in a French version: Mary, Magic Pudding, Ajax, 6 Tam,Tempête (Storm Boy), Blinky Bill. The French titles also occasion- ally add the proper names of people and animals, such as Mirri and Yaya. In stories featuring both humans and animals, and where the English titles have chosen to emphasise the person central to the story rather than the animals that also feature, French titles show significant reliance on the original titles. This strongly suggests that publishers of original and translated works consider proper names an important component of titles for children.

Conclusion

Analysis of the titles studied confirms that French titles consistently show reliance on the original titles and retain the names of animals, except in some cases where source-culture specificity is concerned. An interest in naming animals means that French titles also invariably high- light animals explicitly where not present in the original, but the presence of proper names can take precedence over French titles consistently the naming of animals and result in literal or near- show reliance on the literal translated titles. ‘Free’ translations show original titles considerable variety in either being more explicit than the original titles in their use of proper names

32 / BOOKBIRD TRANSLATING THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

Children’s books: Australian corpus with French translations & other titles Aldridge, J (1974) The Marvellous Mongolian London: Patchett, M (1953) Ajax the Warrior London: Lutter- Oxford University Press / Le merveilleux cheval worth Press / Ajax, Golden Dog of the Australian mongol (1977) Paris: Hachette/Stock Bush (1953) New York:The Bobbs-Merrill Co / Chauncy,N (1957) Tiger in the Bush London: Oxford Ajax le guerrier (1958) Paris: Robert Laffont University Press / Le vallon secret (1961) Paris: Patchett, M (1954) Tam the Untamed London: Lutterworth Éditions de l’Amitié – G-T Rageot Press / Tam l’indompté (1958) Paris: Robert Laffont Clark, D (1951) Black Lightning:The Story of a Leopard Patchett, M (1954) Wild Brother London: Collins / London: Hutchinson / Silky,roi de la jungle (1958) Frère sauvage (1955) Paris: Robert Laffont Paris: Fernand Nathan Patchett, M (1960) The Proud Eagles London:World Clark, D (1954) Boomer, the Life of a Kangaroo London: Publishing / L’enfant et les aigles (1966) Paris: Hutchinson / Joë sous les eucalyptes (1958) Paris: Calmann-Lévy Fernand Nathan Patchett, M (1962) In a Wilderness London: Hodder & Downie, J (1935) Warrigal:The Story of a Wild Horse Stoughton / Mirri chien sauvage (1965) Paris: London: Hutchinson / Warrigal, cheval sauvage Calmann-Lévy (1951) Paris: Bourrelier Paulsen, S (1996) The Stray Cat Port Melbourne,Vic: Gleitzman, M and Jennings, P (1997) Wicked! Part 2 Lothian / Le chat errant (1998) Paris: Hachette Battering Rams Ringwood,Vic: Penguin / Dément! 2 Pedley,E (1899) Dot and the Kangaroo London: La guerre des moutons (2000) Paris: Gallimard jeunesse Thomas Burleigh / Nine et le kangourou (1956) Jennings, P and Gleitzman, M (1997) Wicked! Part 1 Paris: Editions de l’Amitié – GT Rageot The Slobberers Ringwood,Vic: Penguin / Dément! 1 Phipson, J (1977) Fly into Danger New York: L’attaque des vers géants (1999) Paris: Gallimard jeunesse Atheneum / The Bird Smugglers (1979) Sydney: Jennings, P and Gleitzman, M (1997) Wicked! Part 3 Scholastic Book Services / Un vol mouvementé Croaked Ringwood,Vic: Penguin / Dément! 3 La (1982) Paris: Castor Poche Flammarion grenouille tueuse (2000) Paris: Gallimard jeunesse Rodda, E (1986) Pigs Might Fly Sydney:Angus & Keneally,T (1978) Ned Kelly and the City of the Bees Robertson / Cochon vole! (1988) Toulouse:Milan London: Jonathan Cape / La cité des abeilles (1981) Small, M (1989) Broome Dog Glebe, NSW:Walter Paris: Castor Poche Flammarion McVitty Books / La longue marche de Cooky (1993) Lamond, H (1945) Dingo:The Story of an Outlaw New Paris: Castor Poche Flammarion York:William Morrow / White Ears the Outlaw:The Thiele, C (1963) Storm Boy Adelaide: Rigby / On Story of a Dingo (1949) Sydney:Angus and Robert- l’appelait Tempête (1979) Paris: Castor Poche son / Dingo:The Story of an Outlaw (1957) London: Flammarion Faber / Histoire d’un hors-la-loi (1958) Paris: Les Thiele, C (1974) Magpie Island Adelaide: Rigby / Pie Presses de la Cité l’oiseau solitaire (1983) Paris: Castor Poche Flammarion Lamond, H (1953) Big Red London: Faber / Kangaroo Thiele, C (1979) River Murray Mary Adelaide: Rigby / (1953) New York:The John Day Company / Mary,la rivière et le serpent (1985) Paris: Castor Grand-roux, seigneur de la brousse (1954) Paris: Les Poche Flammarion Presses de la Cité Thiele, C (1985) Seashores and Shadow Glebe, NSW: Lindsay,N (1918) The Magic Pudding: Being the Adven- Walter McVitty Books / Shadow Shark (1988) New tures of Bunyip Bluegum and His Friends Bill Barnacle York: Harper & Row / Sharks in the Shadows and Sam Sawnoff / Les aventures de Magic Pudding (1988) London: Dent / Le requin fantôme (1993) (1993) Paris:Anatolia Paris: Castor Poche Flammarion Measday,S (1996) The Giant Spiders Port Melbourne,Vic: Wall, D (1933) Blinky Bill, the Quaint Little Australian Lothian / Les araignées géantes (1998) Paris: Hachette Sydney:Angus & Robertson / Blinky Bill le koala Nilsson, E (1987) The 89th Kitten Norwood, SA: (1994) Paris:Anatolia Omnibus / Le 89e chaton (1990) Toulouse:Milan Wheatley,N (1982) Five Times Dizzy Melbourne: Nilsson, E (1995) Graffiti Dog Norwood, SA: Oxford University Press / Une chèvre pour Yaya Omnibus / Le chien graffiti (1998) Paris: Hachette (1990) Paris: Castor Poche Flammarion

No. 3 – 2005 / 33 TRANSLATING THE ANIMAL KINGDOM and nouns that reflect the designated classifica- References tion of the book, or in being less explicit and Even-Zohar, I (1990) ‘Translation and transfer’ Poetics Today avoiding the use of proper names and generic 11,1: 73–8 animals. This dual situation suggests that title Frank, HT (2003) ‘Pre-empting the text: French transla- tions of twentieth century Australian children’s fiction’ changes are not necessarily designed to accom- (PhD thesis, unpub), Department of French and Italian modate the generic expectations of the target Studies, University of Melbourne culture. Kenny, D (1998) ‘Creatures of habit?: What translators Catering to generic expectations is, however, usually do with words’ Meta XLIII, 4: 1-8 evident in the translation into French of referents Pym, A (1992) Translation and Text Transfer: An Essay on the Principles of Intercultural Communication Frankfurt am of Australia. Contrary to the expectation that Main: Peter Lang publishers would change titles to highlight Toury, G (1995) Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond Australianness, French title translations reflect Amsterdam: John Benjamins strategies that downplay local specificity in pref- erence to marketing Australian titles as works belonging to a genre rather than to a place.There 1 The use of the term ‘translator’ in this paper implies all is very little presence of, and hence emphasis on, agents involved in the publishing trade (Toury 1995), Australia in the original and translated titles.This such as publishers, editors, translators, literary agents and artists. would suggest that publishers consider ‘foreign- ness’ to be a liability in terms of sales. 2 For the purposes of this study, the term ‘animal’ includes all non-human species and anthropomorphised creatures. Pragmatic and conservative 3 The published translations are indicated in italics with choices by translators who the equals symbol; literal translations of titles – as are focused on their child opposed to the published translations – are indicated in readers roman font in square brackets. 4 The ‘first published’ translations into French of two Many of the translational changes we have early Australian works featuring kangaroos (Boomer and Dot and the Kangaroo) possibly indicate an early interest seen – explicitation, euphemism, modification in Australian exotic fauna. In contrast, the two titles and simplification – are pragmatic and conser- about a koala (The Magic Pudding and Blinky Bill) – the vative choices by translators who are focused on other exotic animal marketed in tourist literature about their child readers. Further studies of the Australia – were only translated into French and three other European languages in the 1990s, despite the fact patterning effect of titles in translations into that they were originally published in 1918 and 1933. other languages will establish whether patterns 5 Near-literal translations are defined here as titles that observed in French title translations of retain one or more keywords from the original title with Australian children’s fiction are replicated. the addition of wording that does not affect the meaning Given the influence of manipulation in transla- or generic classification of the work. Keywords are defined here as nouns and proper names of people, tion for reasons of adaptation to the target places and creatures. community, we would expect to see common 6 The same pattern is evident concerning proper names in patterns across languages and topics, although titles in Table 1: Boomer/Joë,Warrigal, Dot/Nine, Black the incidence of ‘universals’ may differ in Lightning/Silky. Only two title translations do not number and degree depending on the follow the pattern, Ned Kelly and Dingo.The fact that languages and cultures involved. ‘Ned Kelly’ does not refer to the well-known Australian bushranger may explain its deletion from the French title, given its ‘misleading’ nature.

34 / BOOKBIRD This is a sequel to ‘Babale la’, published in 200 in Afrikaans, and 0 subsequently transla English. I ted into n the new book, the B a abalela is wakened by his frien ds who envy him his previous trip to the c ity. None of them has experienced the world outside the fo friend rest. His s go off to the city to gether, only to be cau by humans and ght packed up in crates. In a nightmare, the Bab Marthie P alela sees their pligh reller and flies off to sea t rch for them. He find (Erica and A crates in a s the ndries Maritz illus) n airport warehouse. m By an ingenious ethod, he gets the va rious creatures to free Diep, diep in ’n donker bos themselves. As in th e earlier book, the au a conserva thor tells [Deep, deep in a dark forest] tion story within an e y ntertainment for oung readers and lis teners. The endearing illustrations hav Pretoria: LAPA e distinct appeal for 2004 48pp audie the intended ISBN 0799 nce. 331821 (fiction 5–8) Anna Louw

An offering in English from Kane/Miller, whose slogan is ‘open-minded books opening young minds to the world’, STANDING UP has sure appeal for boy toddlers worldwide. ‘Sitting on my potty like my big sister was fine. But I really like standing up! Just like Manneke Pis. Just like Daddy,’ declares the young hero. Delightful and often funny illustrations show how one little boy MARIE-ANNE GILLET AND ISABELLE GILBOUX practises the art of standing up. Like everything in life, standing up takes practice. No one is perfect STANDING UP (or perfectly dry) at first. But eventually, after a = IK PLAS ALS EEN GROTE JONGEN few missteps hilariously rendered in colourful cartoon-style drawings, success is achieved. La Jolla, Ca: Kane/Miller 2005; Brussels: Included are a photograph and note on the Uitgeverij Clavis 2004 32pp inspiration for this picturebook, Manneke Pis, the ISBN (US edn) 1929132719 (picturebook 2–5) famous bronze statue near the Grand Place in Brussels. Glenna Sloan

No. 3 – 2005 / 35 Nina Christensen’s article on Peter Hunt’s revised edition of International Companion Encyclopaedia of Children’s Literature is a Scandinavian take on this important English-language work International Hunt, Peter (ed) International Companion Encyclopaedia of Children’s Literature. 2nd Edition.Vols. 1 & 2. London: Routledge, 2004 0 415 29053

n the preface to the new, extended and revised edition of Inter- national Companion Encyclopaedia of Children’s Literature,the I editor Peter Hunt states, ‘This is an English-language work, primarily written by scholars working in English for a predomi- nantly English-speaking audience’ (p xix), apparently in order to meet the criticism that the first edition was Anglocentric. This review takes a Danish and Scandinavian point of view, and will touch upon the question of the implied audience of the book and on internationalism versus a Western/Anglo-Saxon point of view in Good Company relation to children’s literature studies.

Impressive new edition of The two volumes comprise 112 articles by 116 authors in more than 1300 pages on a wide variety of subjects

Eight years have passed since the first edition was published and if Companion Encyclopaedia of Children’s Literature Companion Encyclopaedia of Children’s one compares the two editions, the immediately obvious difference is the size: one thick volume has become two, each of them at least the size of the first edition. Since this is an encyclopaedia, the binding is important, and this second version is not only more appealing in its by NINA CHRISTENSEN dark red binding with the title in silvery letters, but it also seems to be more substantial.There is also more text on each page, and I must say I think the actual print of the first edition was better. Concerning the content of the volumes, it is of course an impossi- ble task to make a relatively short and yet comprehensive review of this massive work: the two volumes comprise 112 articles by 116 authors, all in all more than 1300 closely printed pages on a wide Nina Christensen is acting director of the Centre variety of subjects.The structure of the first edition is preserved, and for Children’s Literature, Danish University of Education, and author of Barnesjælen. the new edition is also in five parts. In the first part, various critical Børnelitteraturen og det romantiske barn approaches to children’s literature are presented, and there are new [The essential child: children’s literature and the Romantic child] (2005) GOOD COMPANY articles, for example one by David Rudd on novels, pulps and Penny Dreadfuls’ by Denis children’s literature studies from a cultural studies Giffords. I would like to think that the develop- perspective, one by Maria Nikolajeva who intro- ment of this part reflects the fact that children’s duces narrative theory, and one by Emer literature studies is moving away from the O’Sullivan on comparative children’s literature. I normative perspective on genre of earlier ages, find the articles in this part highly useful and perhaps under the influence of cultural studies.A stimulating to read – not only is it inspiring to broader perspective on what the field includes is read the new material, but it is also good to also to be seen in the much expanded inclusion reread some of the articles that have remained of new media in the second volume of the ency- unchanged since the first edition, for example clopaedia. David Buckingham writes about Perry Nodelman’s ‘Picture book and illustra- television, Ian Wojcik-Andrews on film, and the tion’. Karín Lesnik-Oberstein’s article ‘Defining Anglo-Saxon perspective has been toned down Children’s Literature and Childhood’, has been by the exclusion of articles on publishing in omitted, perhaps because it relied rather heavily Britain and the USA. on quotations, but I think it is a pity that there is not an article in this part that draws on and A broader perspective on continues Lesnik-Oberstein’s work – for what the field includes is instance discussing the relationship between seen in the coverage of social constructivism and children’s literature new media studies and between childhood studies and chil- dren’s literature studies. The latter is a central In the ‘Applications’ part, almost all the articles discussion in the field, and, though it does pop are new – perhaps reflecting a tendency on the up in various articles, I would have enjoyed an part of those who work with children’s literature article theorising solely on this matter. towards a higher degree of meta-consciousness. At least from a Danish point of view,the demand New articles by David on practitioners to reflect on what they are doing Rudd, Maria Nikolajeva when they work with children’s literature is and Emer O’Sullivan increasing, but investigations which can support such a development are scarce so far. This case The second part in the new edition is still demonstrates that, seen from the perspective of a ‘Form and genres’, and also here the field seems to have expanded: for instance, religious chil- New articles on applications dren’s literature and folklore have got a bigger reflect a tendency to place in this edition. Children’s own production meta-consciousness of text gets a place too, for instance through a well-written and interesting article on ‘Chil- small, non-English-speaking country with a dren’s rhymes and folklore: contemporary and limited tradition of research on children’s litera- comparative approaches’ by Andy Arleo.This part ture, it is both an advantage and a necessity to get shows a broad perspective on what children’s access to the knowledge of researchers from literature studies includes, for instance in an arti- countries with a stronger and broader tradition. cle on ‘Contemporary comics’ by Katia Pizzi, Though articles in this part mainly reflect a and one on ‘Popular literature: comics, dime British or American reality, their discussions of

No. 3 – 2005 / 37 GOOD COMPANY

questions concerning applications of children’s literature broaden the perspective and suggest new possibilities. Finally, the fifth part deals with national and international perspectives on children’s literature through articles on various National and international aspects of translation and not least articles on the perspectives on children’s literatures of a great part of the world. In this edition literature and translation the countries are ordered alphabetically, which is both more practical and also shows a change from the implied hierarchical order of the first edition, where the descriptions of British, Scottish,Welsh and Irish children’s literature were high up on the list. Changes on the world map are to a certain extent reflected in the inclusion of, for instance, an article on children’s literature of the Baltic countries, written by Kestutis Urba, one on South East Europe and Slovenia written by Milena Mileva Blazic, and one on Iran’s children’s literature by Morteza Khosronejad. Of course not all countries in the world are represented, and it cannot be denied – as Hunt’s initial state- ment shows he realises – that this is the world as seen from a Western perspective. And one article on Africa and one for Mexico and Central America does not seem like a strong representation. It is ironic that the alphabetical order adopted moves the United Kingdom and the USA to the absolute end of the book. But one gets access to quite a big part of the world through these arti- cles, even though an attempt to characterise the history and the actual situation of children’s literature in a certain area Some countries have a must be extremely selective and general, due to the stronger and longer limited space. However, this is an encyclopaedia tradition of children’s which one would use as starting point when trying literature studies to find some ways into a new area, and it includes articles on countries, which to my knowledge have not been described to this degree before in an international context.The articles also make it evident that some countries have a stronger and longer tradition of studies and writing about children’s literature, a perspective that makes one more aware of international differences within the field. One could ask: what has happened in children’s literature studies which has made it necessary not just to reprint the first edition, but to revise it fully? Peter Hunt gives one of the explanations in the preface:‘A central difficulty of a book like this, which has been pointed out by the (generally helpful) reviewers and users of the first edition, is the word “international” in the title’ (p xviii), and in continuation of this he poses the question whether the book is ‘Anglocentric, rather than truly “International’” (p xix). The first edition was criticised for using primarily English-based

38 / BOOKBIRD GOOD COMPANY examples and focusing on Western schools of literature as an international field. Instead of the thought, but as mentioned, Hunt points out in idea of an ‘apparent sameness’ of children’s litera- the preface that there is no neutral place to stand ture worldwide, an idea she traces back to Paul in the world of children’s literature, and he Hazard, she suggests a comparative perspective chooses a pragmatic solution, which is to state on the history of children’s literature, which that indeed his implied reader is the English- would ‘examine the social, economic, political speaking part of children’s literature studies. and cultural conditions which have to prevail for Though I understand his reservations, one could a children’s literature to become established in also say, that in saying this he does not do the the first place, would register such formative encyclopaedia justice; though it is written in influences as religion on its development, and English and therefore of course limits its audience would reveal how the unique histories of post- to the public able to read this language, one notes colonial children’s literature differ from the an explicit intent to broaden the perspective, for postulated “standard” model based on northern instance by including German-, Spanish- and European countries’ (p 16). Russian-speaking scholars on the editorial board. Though I must say that I still find it irritating in And though the articles on theory, context, many cases to be confronted with a British/Amer- genres and applications are mainly written by ican canon of books, most of which I have not Anglophone critics, the ‘National and interna- read, and though I wish that translated works were tional’ part includes scholars representing an more often used as examples, I do think that this impressive variety of languages. encyclopaedia presents a very international As a non-English native speaker, one welcomes perspective, and I insist, as a non-native English a greater consciousness among ‘primarily speaker,on being included in the implied audience English-speaking’ scholars towards the literatures of the book! I have found it very useful in prepar- and scholarship of other countries and ing a master’s course in textual analysis and theory languages.This is, for instance, to be seen in the of children’s literature, and also think that my revised article on feminism by Lisa Paul, where students will benefit from it.This usefulness is, one she notes that ‘for Anglophone scholars, access to has to say,diminished by the cost of the book. It is the work being done in non-English-speaking expensive and my guess is that customers will countries is still limited’ (p 149), but shows that primarily be libraries.Though I understand why it she herself has knowledge of research going on must be so, it is indeed a pity – also from an inter- for instance in Scandinavia. national perspective, since this is a book I think Indeed Hunt seems to me to be too modest in most scholars of children’s literature would benefit his initial suggestion that the encyclopaedia is from having as a companion on a daily basis. Anglocentric. Kimberley Reynolds’s article on All in all: to me it has been stimulating and ‘Children’s literature organisations: an interna- uplifting to see the heterogeneity of children’s tional overview’ discusses and describes how the literature studies reflected in this book. The field can develop on an international level, and work Peter Hunt has done editing the enor- Emer O’Sullivan traces the history of the idea of mous amount of text is simply impressive. The internationalism in a very interesting article on result is informative, thought-provoking and ‘Internationalism, the universal child and the awe-inspiring, and will hopefully lead to endless world of children’s literature’. O’Sullivan both discussions within the field – also on the topic questions and discusses the idea of children’s of internationalism.

No. 3 – 2005 / 39 A true story from Ira q inspired these bo equally ap oks. In different, pealing formats are d A ramatic accounts of h lia Muhammed Baker, c ow hief librarian of the Library in Basra Central , Iraq, smuggled 30,0 safety in 00 volumes to the war-stricken co untry. As war in 200 closer to Basra, the 3 drew librarian feared for th precious bo e safety of the oks. Pleas to governm ign ent officials were ored. Determined to p reserve the history a her people, Alia nd culture of enlisted the aid of frie neighb nds and ours who, at the risk of their lives, rescu 70 per cent of the ed and hid MARK A library’s collection. N STAMATY library burn ine days later the ed to the ground. ALIA’S M ISSION: SAVING TH Cartoonist Sta E BOOKS OF IRAQ maty brings to Alia’s New York: Alfred A Knopf 2004 30pp immedia remarkable story cy and dramatic actio ISBN 0375832173 (graphic novel, all ages) n through narration a dialogue in a series o nd f graphic-novel pane of Alia’s res ls. Winter tells olve and resourcefuln JEAN pic ess in traditional ETTE WINTER turebook format, with each page a satisfyin THE LI succinct text an g blend of BRARIAN OF BAS d stylised paintings re RA: A TRUE STOR acrylic a ndered in vivid FROM IRAQ Y nd pen. Both do justic s e to this inspirationa New York: Harcourt, 2005 28pp tory of a real-life su l true perhero. ISBN 0152054456 (picturebook, all ages) Glenna Sloan

BLUE TIMES is an adventure story in which children try to unravel the mystery of an old red-covered book which they purchased at a bookstore. The book tells its story to the children through hints and clues. The adventure takes the children to Allianoi, an ancient city near Izmir (Smyrna), built in the second century BC and now threatened with submersion in water. The children must search for a crystal with power to change the magnetic movements Mavisel Yener of the earth. Secret codes abound in this story, (Asuman Portakal illus) with clues found in many places, including on ancient pottery. The story, beginning a thousand MAVI ZAMANLAR [BLUE TIMES] years ago, ends in the present. This novel, constructed on historical, archaeological and Izmir: Tudem Yayonlaro 2003 198pp mythological themes with fantastic features, won ISBN 9756451483 (fiction 12+) first place in 2003 in the early teen category of a Tudem Publishing Company award. Nilay Yilmaz

40 / BOOKBIRD Important Issues for a Small Literature Friesland: Awards and Quality

It is a well-known fact: awards have the effect of stimulating the quality of children’s literature. This consideration of an award for children’s literature in a lesser-used language exemplifies how awards can help to raise standards

t is a well-known fact: awards have the effect of stimulating the by JANT VAN DER WEG quality of children’s literature.This holds good for all literature, Iregardless of the number of readers. In this article I will present the example of a literature written in a lesser-used language. One of the autochthonous languages of Europe, Frisian is the mother tongue of about 400,000 inhabitants of the province of Friesland, in the north of The Netherlands.The Frisian language is centuries old

and differs considerably from Dutch, which is the first official Jant van der Weg is president of the language of The Netherlands. About twenty children’s books are Stichting It Fryske Berneboek (Foundation for the Frisian Children’s published in Frisian annually, including prose, poetry, songs and Book), president of the Dutch section of IBBY and an IBBY EC member FRIESLAND: AWARDS AND QUALITY

rhymes, original and translated. The most important award for Frisian children’s liter- The Simke Kloosterman ature is the Simke Kloosterman Award, which is given Award is given once every once every three years.As well as this prize, awarded by three years adults, there is an annual prize awarded by the target group itself.These prizes of the children’s jury are also important, as they guarantee the authors that their work is read.

Simke Kloosterman Award

The Simke Kloosterman House is situated in the Frisian village of Twizel, where the well-known Frisian author Simke Kloosterman (1876–1938) lived until her death. Nowadays the house is a small museum, which is preserved and furnished as it was during her lifetime. Kloosterman’s first book of prose and poetry was published in 1910, and her family novel, De Hoara’s fan Hastings [The (Family of) Hoaras of Hast- ings] (1921), was the first major Frisian novel. She also created some fairy tales for children, which have been published as the beautifully designed Twiljochtteltsjes [Twilight tales] (1928). Simke was the unmarried only daughter of a rather rich gentleman farmer, so she didn’t need to work for her living. This secure situation allowed her to write in her native Frisian: even today most Frisian authors cannot earn a living by writing in their own language, because the market is far too small and subventions for the publishing of books are limited. But for Simke in her circumstances it was no problem. She could afford to have her books published in well-illustrated and hardback editions. The Simke Kloosterman-lien is a foundation created from a bequest of the author’s. Initially, the foundation made grants to university students, but by the early 1980s, the board of the foundation was looking for another way of using the funds, since students were by then supported by the government. At that time, the provincial government had started the process of restructuring the series of awards for Frisian literature, prose and poetry, translations and debuts, but there was no provision for a special award for children’s literature. It was in the springtime of 1982 that a delegation of a private committee of children’s book promoters, Berneboekepraat (BBP – Children’s Book Talk), came to Twizel, and suggested to the trustees of the Simke Kloosterman-lien that they should establish an award

42 / BOOKBIRD FRIESLAND: AWARDS AND QUALITY for children’s literature, to be named after the author, a suggestion that the trustees were very happy to take up. This is the only exclusive prize for children’s literature in Frisian that is made on a regular basis. Children’s literature is also eligible for more general provincial literary prizes, but so far no children’s book has won any of these prizes.

Prizewinners

In 1983 the first Simke Kloosterman Award was made, to the youth novel Cap Sud by Reinder van der Leest. The second award also went to a youth novel, Swart op wyt [Black on white] by Akky van der Veer, and there were fears that the prize was going to be confined to youth novels. Authors were anxious that literature for children under ten should also be acknowledged, but these At first, youth novels won anxieties were resolved when the next award, made the award, and soon it was in 1989, went to Bartele Bûse [Bartele Trouser awarded also to books for Pocket] by Berber van der Geest. This book was younger readers intended for much younger readers, as was the same author’s next award-winning title, De kilekanen [The bogeymen], which received the 1995 award. Of course it is not so easy to compare youth novels with poetry or stories for young children, but it was the literary quality that led the way in the jury’s reports. It hûs fol ferhalen [The house full of stories] by Mindert Wijnstra, honoured with the award in 1992, drew attention in IBBY circles too. It was mentioned on the IBBY Honour List of 1994, after it had got a place on the Honour List of the Premio Europeo Litterature (Padua) in 1992.As a result of appearing on the IBBY Honour List, the book was trans- lated, as is the intention of this list. In 1996, a Japanese translation was published, followed by a Korean transla- tion in 2002. Other Simke Kloosterman-prizes went to Yn piama de dyk oer [In pyamas along the road] (1998) by Auck Peanstra, an impressive story about a grandmother becoming demented, and to Eppie Dam’s Dingeman krijt wjokken

No. 3 – 2005 / 43 FRIESLAND: AWARDS AND QUALITY

[Dingeman gets wings] (2001), about a relationship with an unknown father. As a consequence of discussion on whether or not an adaptation of stories from Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ could be considered eligible for the award, the regula- tions were changed. Since 2002 not only original Frisian work may receive the award, but also adapta- tions, and so Lida Dykstra, author of the Ovid stories, finally settled her score with the foundation when her picturebook, Mûske, myn famke [My girl Mousie] (2003), with pictures by the well-known South African illustrator Piet Grobler, won the 1994 award. In this book, Dykstra has again adapted an old story,which had already been retold by the Frisian poet Gysbert Japiks in the 17th century.

Nomination and prizegiving

To promote a prize is not easy,as insiders know.The fund trustees are glad of any media coverage. And of course child readers should be involved too. In order to strengthen the involvement of children in the procedure, some years ago a new element was added. As well as the prize-giving ceremony in May,there is a kind of nomination procedure some months earlier, and local schoolchildren assist at a meeting to announce which books are nominated. Then the discussion can begin: Why these books and why not those other ones, a discussion which is well-known in prize circles (though in fact, by this stage, the jury has already made its deci- sion). There could be discussions in such a small society about the jury too, but in fact the juries have so far maintained their independence.

IBBY Honour List

Prizes not only stimulate quality, but are also an indication of quality: books winning the Simke Kloosterman Award are likely candidates for other awards and prizes, and some of the prizewinners have also been awarded a place on the IBBY Honour List.The first ever Frisian book on an IBBY Honour List was Bartele Bûse, which appeared on the 1992 list and was also a winner of the Simke Kloosterman Prizes not only stimulate Award, as was It hûs fol ferhalen, which, as we have seen, quality, but are also an appeared on the 1994 list. Still, there is no automatic indication of quality link between winning the Simke Kloosterman Award and being awarded a place on the IBBY Honour List,

44 / BOOKBIRD FRIESLAND: AWARDS AND QUALITY as the last two Frisian Honour List books show. No author can get rich by Lida Dykstra’s book of Ovid stories, Wolken fan writing in a minority wol [Clouds of wool], which was ineligible for language the Simke Kloosterman Award, appeared on the 2002 Honour List. And in 2004 a volume of poetry, Lokaal 13 [Classroom 13] by Baukje and glory. It is therefore rather exciting that the Wytsma, was on the Honour List.This book was Simke Kloosterman Award is, unusually, introduced at the Honour List ceremony as ‘the connected with a sum of money.This consists of most surprising and most sophisticated book of 1500 euros, mainly from the Simke Kloosterman the whole list’. fund but also including a contribution from the provincial government.There is no money avail- able for the Children’s Book Jury Award, and Children’s Book Jury Award honour and a silver brooch have to be sufficient. Although children are involved in the nomina- A spin-off of these prizes is inspiration for new tion and in the prizegiving ceremonies of the work, and there may be some kind of public Simke Kloosterman Award, they don’t have the relations value surrounding the award ceremony, opportunity to give their opinion and to decide but that’s it. on the prizewinner. There is another occasion for that purpose. Once a year there is a reading Conclusion promotion event which includes a Children’s Book Jury, where children decide which of a Having a children’s book award for Frisian selection of books deserves their award.The chil- children’s literature has created a better profile dren involved in this process are mostly in the for children’s literature in the world of Frisian 8–12 age group.They read the books, of course, literature generally and has worked to improve and there are also events with authors telling the quality of children’s literature in Frisian. stories and reading from their work, there’s a Therefore one might conclude that prizes storytelling bus, and there is also Internet actually have a quality-promoting influence on involvement, with new stories to be read for and a literature in a lesser-used language like by children. Frisian. Although the number of prizes is far behind those for Dutch children’s literature, and although the provincial government is less Prize money involved in these prizes than the Dutch No author can get rich by writing in a minority government is, Frisian children’s literature language and most prizes consist only of honour claims its share.

Correction The ESET project, described in Bookbird 43.2 by Penni Cotton, is based not at Sussex but at Surrey University in the UK

No. 3 – 2005 / 45 Onyefulu, raised in Nigeria and now liv specialises in ing in London, informative picture countrie books set in African s. As in many of her o fro ther books, the sto m the viewpoint of a ry is told young child. His earn engages the reade est face r immediately as he a new cousin. A nnounces, ‘I have a t the moment everyo can’t w ne calls her “Baby”. I ait for her to have a name. My name is A it sounds nicer tha marlai, and n “Baby”.’ He explain country much s that in his can be known about p names eople through their . Amarlai means that h n e is the first son; his ame, Amarkai, means uncle’s he is the third son. Ifeoma Onyefulu Facts c (with photos ome to life in this live by the author) p ly book. We expe reparations and the ritu rience the als of the naming c Welcom Amarlai’s young e eremony through e Dede! An yes. Text and picture African supplying p s work well together, lenty of detail throu Naming C eng gh accessible langua eremony aging photographs of p ge and articipants in an ac ceremony. The child tual naming narrator’s voice lend readers and lis s appeal for young teners. Interesting London: Frances L Amarla facts not covered in incoln 2003 26pp i’s narration are su pplied in side notes in ISBN 18450 yellow background, fo boxes with 73118 (non-fiction r example, ‘Dede m 6–12) daughter.”’ eans “The first

Glenna Sloan

Set in 1892–6, the period preceding the first Olympic Games, this book revisits a crucial period in modern Greek history. The plot, centred on the friendship of two girls who attend the famous Arsakeion School of Athens, focuses on the preparation and realisation of the Games. Crafted like precious old lace, the novel presents an accurate picture of places, people, and situations of that time. Essential Angeliki Varella information about personalities and the social and political life that mark those years is (Elli Solomonidi-Balanou illus) provided in such a way as to evoke the atmosphere of the era. Sketches by Elli KALIMERA, ELPIDA! Solomonidi-Balanou, in absolute harmony with the [Good Morning, Hope!] text, detail the period in which the novel is set. Athens: Patakis 2003 200pp KALIMERA, ELPIDA! won two major awards in ISBN 9601608923 (fiction 12+) 2004, the IBBY Greece prize in the books for older readers category and the magazine DIAVAZO prize for books for adolescents. Vasso Nika

46 / BOOKBIRD BOOKBIRD

contributions in most major European languages. Please Submission Guidelines contact us first if you have a translation problem. Format:Word for Windows (Mac users please save for Bookbird your document in rich text format – RTF) as an email attachment; send illustrations as JPG attachments. Style and layout:The author’s name and details should appear in the email only,not in the paper itself.A ookbird:A Journal of International Children’s Literature stylesheet is available with more detailed guidelines. B is the refereed journal of the International Board Deadline: Bookbird is published every quarter, in on Books for Young People (IBBY). January,April, July,October. Papers may be submitted Papers on any topic related to children’s literature at any time, but it is unlikely that your paper, if and of interest to an international audience will be accepted for publication, would be published for at considered for publication. Contributions are invited least six to nine months from the date of submission, not only from scholars and critics but also from to allow time for refereeing and the production process. editors, translators, publishers, librarians, classroom Contact details: Please send two copies: one to educators and children’s book authors and illustrators [email protected] AND one to or anyone working in the field of children’s literature. [email protected] Please try to supply illustrations for your article. NB: Please put Bookbird submission followed by (Book covers are sufficient, but other illustrations are your initials in the subject line. also welcome.) Please remember to include your full name and contact details Length: Up to 3000 words (including postal address), together with your professional Language:Articles are published in English, but where affiliation and/or a few lines describing your area of work in authors have no translation facilities, we can accept the body of your email.

Send us a book postcard from your part of the world!

Notices on international children’s books, distributed throughout Bookbird, are compiled from sources around the world by Glenna Sloan, who teaches children’s literature at Queens College, City University of New York.

Have you got a favourite recently published children’s book – a picturebook, story collection, novel or information book – that you think should be known outside its own country? If you know of a book from your own or another country that you feel should be introduced to the IBBY community, please send a short account of it to us at Bookbird, and we may publish it. Send copy (about 150 words), together with full publication details (use ‘postcard’ reviews in this issue of Bookbird as a model) and a scan of the cover image (in JPG format), to Professor Glenna Sloan ([email protected]). We are very happy to receive reviews from non-English-speaking countries – but remember to include an English translation of the title as well as the original title (in transliterated form, where applicable).

No. 3 – 2005 / 47 Books on

Edited and compiled Books about the national children’s literatures by BARBARA SCHARIOTH of Russia and Slovenia are reviewed here; also a collection of essays by the German scholar Rüdiger Steinlein; books about Arab, Dutch/Flemish and Japanese illustrations; an eclectic Spanish volume on international children’s literature of the past century; and Barbara Scharioth is director of the Internationale an bibliography Jugendbibliothek (International Youth Library) in Munich BOOKS ON BOOKS

AUSTRIA

PETER NOEVER (ED) Schili-Byli: Russische Kinderbücher 1920–1940 [Shili-Byli: Russian children’s books 1920–1940] Wien: Schlebrügge 2004 64pp ISBN 3851600444 €21.00 This bilingual (German-English) catalogue was put together for an ambitious exhibition in Vienna (October 20, 2004 until February 20, 2005) called ‘Shili-Byli’, Russian for ‘Once upon a time’. Criti- cal texts and many high-quality reproductions afford insight into various aspects of Russian chil- dren’s literature of the twenties and thirties. Under the highly restrictive Bolshevist regime, children’s books offered Russian authors and illustrators a refuge for experimental and subversive expression. This allowed artists and writers such as Vladimir Lebedev, Vladimir Majakovski, Ossip Mandelstam and El Lissitzky to earn their living producing books for children. In a particularly interesting contribution, contemporary illustrator Ilya Kabakov explains how his generation of artists no longer had access to the books of the Russian avant-garde. Following World War II, all art had to conform to the Soviet canon.The regime advocated realism and naturalism, and traditional fairy tales dominated the publishing scene.A small group of ‘unofficial’ artists countered the conformist production of the three great publish- ing houses of children’s literature in Moscow, Children’s books offered a Leningrad and Kiev. They did not, however, refuge for experimental consider themselves as following in the footsteps of and subversive expression the avant-garde. A reprint of the picturebook The Kitchen (Moscow 1923) written by Ossip Mandelstam and illustrated by Vladimir Isenberg is added to the magnificently illustrated catalogue. Barbara Scharioth

Submissions of recent books and book announcements for inclusion in this section are welcome. Please cite titles in the orig- inal language as well as in English, and give ISBN, price and other ordering information if available. Brief annotations may also be sent, but please no extensive reviews. Send submissions to Barbara Scharioth, Internationale Jugendbibliothek, Schloss Blutenburg, D-81247 München, Germany.

No. 3 – 2005 / 49 BOOKS ON BOOKS

GERMANY

ARAB PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION (ED) RÜDIGER STEINLEIN Arab Illustrations for Children’s Books: Kinder- und Jugendliteratur als Schöne Exhibition Literatur: gesammelte Aufsätze zu ihrer Frankfurt am Main: Frankfurt Book Fair 2004 [106]pp Geschichte und Ästhetik no ISBN (Series: Kinder- und Jugendkultur, -literatur und -medien 25) Children’s literature from [Children’s and young adult literature as belles Arabic-speaking countries lettres: collected essays on its history and aesthetics] is little known to the outside world. But even Frankfurt am Main [et al.]: Lang 2004 360pp € among Arab countries ISBN 3631518447 56.50 exchange is surprisingly It was not until the 1970s that limited, partly because of children’s and young adult important social and literature was considered cultural differences. worthy of scholarly attention In light of recent developments in Arabic chil- in West Germany.This collec- dren’s literature, an exhibition of children’s book tion of previously published illustrations organised by the Arab Publishers essays by Rüdiger Steinlein, Association for the 2004 Frankfurt Book Fair, professor of German literature which featured the Arab world, was especially welcome. The accompanying English catalogue Steinlein describes contains 50 illustrations and biographical data of children’s literature as a 50 artists, most of whom come from Egypt and ‘culture of laughter’ Lebanon, the two leading countries of the Arab publishing industry. at the Humboldt University Berlin and specialist The catalogue impresses with its wide range of in children’s literature, reflects the development of themes, techniques and styles: there are tradi- different areas of the still fledgling German schol- tional tales and modern everyday stories; classical arship of the eighties and nineties. There are illustration techniques and computer graphics; cultural and sociological reflections on storytelling illustrations inspired by traditional oriental art and independent reading, essays on 18th-century and others following the mainstream of interna- children’s literature, and literary studies of adven- tional aesthetics.This is an important publication ture novels and Wild West fiction.Three essays in that opens the door to a picture-world just wait- the second part of the book focus on the represen- ing to be explored. tation of National Socialism in German children’s Jochen Weber and young adult literature. In the final part, Stein- lein describes children’s literature as a ‘culture of laughter’ by taking a closer look at the children’s classic Baron Münchhausen. Extensive biblio- graphical references complete each essay. Christa Stegemann

50 / BOOKBIRD BOOKS ON BOOKS

JAPAN THE NETHERLANDS/BELGIUM

SHIN TORIGOE (ED) SASKIA DE BODT and JEROEN Hajimete manabu Nihon no ehonshi 1–3 KAPELLE (Series:‘Shirizu– Nihon no bungakushi’) Prentenboeken: ideologie en illustratie [Introduction to the history of Japanese picture- 1890–1950 books vols 1–3] [Picturebooks: Ideology and illustration Kyoto: Mineruva Shobo– 2001–2002 XV,353, 14 pp; XIII, 372, 1890–1950] 23 pp; XVI, 412, 37pp ISBN 4623033155 / 033163 / 033171 Amsterdam; Gent: Ludion 2003 276pp ISBN ¥ 3000 (vols 1 and 2), ¥ 3200 (vol 3) 9076588589 €49.50 Even though it was published This seminal study in 2001–2, this seminal work can be seen as ‘the’ is still worthy of wider standard work on critical attention. Japan’s the history of modernisation since the Dutch and Flemish Meiji Restoration has also illustrated chil- had a major impact on the dren’s literature. development of the picture- The first part book. In collaboration with describes Dutch about forty experts, Professor and Flemish picturebooks of the period Shin Torigoe has created this first systematic study of between 1890 and 1950 from the point of the history of the modern Japanese picturebook.This view of art history. In the second part, the pioneering work covers the period from 1868 until authors take a more detailed look at the illus- 2000 and includes children’s magazines, non-fiction trators and their training, at the publishers and mass-produced picturebooks. It also takes a thor- and at the typography of the picturebooks of ough look at government censorship during the this period.The ten chapters of the third part ‘15-year war’ (1931–45) and its consequences for book offer examples of the various genres and production.The various essays about authors and illus- themes of this part of the history of chil- trators and their works and readers, about publishing dren’s literature. The book comes complete houses and publisher personalities, about the changes with biographies of all illustrators in printing techniques, production and distribution mentioned, a selection of secondary litera- always take into account the political, social and ture and a name and title index. The cultural context of the times. This is why the three beautiful design of the book with its many volumes are also a mirror of these times.Text boxes add examples of picturebooks in text and image further background information or interesting details add life to the critical analysis. to make this extensive study truly appealing. Toin Duijx In 2002, this book won the 24th Japan Society of Publishing Studies Promotion Award and a year later Japan’s modernisation the 27th Japanese Academic Society for Children’s has had a major impact Literature Special Award. on the development of Fumiko Ganzenmüller the picturebook

No. 3 – 2005 / 51 BOOKS ON BOOKS

THE NETHERLANDS SLOVENIA

GIOIA SMID and AUKJE HOLTROP (EDS) MARJANA KOBE ` ` Getekend: Fiep Westendorp ‘Vedez’` in zacetki` posvetnega mladinskega

[Signed: Fiep Westendorp] slovstva na slovenskem 1778-1850 ` Amsterdam: Querido 2003 159pp ISBN 9045100479 €39.95 [Vedez` (The wise man) and the beginning of

secular children’s literature in Slovenia 1778–1850] This magnificent ` ` volume presents the Maribor: Mariborska knjiznica, Revija Otrok in knjiga life and work of the 2004 314pp ISBN 9619141601 well-known Dutch This work by the senior liter- illustrator Fiep West- ary scholar Marjana Kobe is endorp (1916–2004). the first major study of early Westendorp was a Slovenian children’s litera- versatile artist with a ture. Just as anywhere else in highly recognisable Europe, the earliest texts style. The ten addressed to children were mainly religious in Slovenia. Fiep Westendorp was a It was not until the Enlight- versatile artist with a highly recognisable style Shows how Slovenian children’s literature was contributors analyse the development of her inspired by German-language work, ranging from her little known freelance children’s magazines work, the anecdotal illustrations for the weekly magazine ‘Vrij Nederland’ and the newspaper enment that secular literature was produced for ‘Het Parool’, to her illustrations of Mies children, who were then no longer considered Bouhuys’s books and the unique cooperation deficient adults.The great merit of this book is the

with Annie MG Schmidt, the famous Dutch author’s comparative approach. Presenting an ` children’s book author.The biographical part of analysis of the children’s magazine Vedez` [The wise the book is based on various interviews with the man] founded in 1848, Kobe looks at the develop- illustrator and specialists of her work as well as ment of Slovenian children’s literature within the on archival material. Many colour photos and wider context of the German and Austrian illustrations, two hitherto unpublished stories by Enlightenment and the tradition of philanthropic Annie MG Schmidt illustrated by Westendorp, pedagogy. She shows how Slovenian children’s and a complete list of all the books and maga- literature was inspired by German-language chil- zines in which she published complete this dren’s magazines and describes formal and thematic monumental book. It was published six months traditions still cherished today.Not only a history of before Westendorp’s death and accompanied early Slovenian children’s literature then, this book one of the best visited exhibitions of a children’s also proposes a study of the influence of German book illustrator. and Austrian children’s literature. Toin Duijx Werner Küffner

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SPAIN SWEDEN

EQUIPO PEONZA (ED) KERSTIN KVINT Cien libros para un siglo: XX Astrid världen över: en selektiv bibliografi [100 books for a century: XX] 1946–2002 Madrid:Anaya 2004 255pp ISBN 8466727221 €20.20 [Astrid worldwide: a selective bibliography 1946–2002] This special issue of the professional periodical Stockholm: Kvint 2002 125pp ISBN 9188374262 and Peonza proposes an origi- 9188378238 SEK 126.00 nal approach to the This slim bilingual volume history of international (Swedish-English) offers much 20th-century children’s interesting material. It features literature. For every year an extensive bibliography of all from 1901 to 2000, the of Astrid Lindgren’s children’s editors selected one representative title origi- books published in 85 different nally published that year. These more or less languages. Kerstin Kvint, Lind- distinctive milestones are all accompanied by a gren’s co-worker at Rabén & brief description and extract from the text, a Sjögren publishing house and later her private literary contextualisation within the develop- secretary and literary agent, has updated the bibli- ment of children’s literature, and ography first published in 1997 in her book Astrid bio-bibliographical information about the världen över to provide a concise list of Lindgren’s author. Each decade is introduced by a short works, including reproductions of the original title text outlining the political, socio-economic pages. One hundred and thirty million copies of and cultural characteristics of the times. Lindgren’s books have been sold worldwide in Any selection of this kind will include much more than 3500 editions. Pippi Longstocking heads but exclude even more. It’s a daring enterprise the list of translations with 57 different language doomed to be partial. It’s regrettable that Japan editions, closely followed by The Brothers Lionheart and Eastern Europe basically remain blanks on (46), Emil in Lönneberga (44), Ronia, the Robber’s the map. But the 100 titles nevertheless offer a Daughter (39) and The Children in Bullery (39). vast panorama of international children’s litera- Kvint documents the international success of ture, not least thanks to a welcome widening Lindgren’s books, acknowledges the influence of of the traditional canon. Instead of exclusively German publisher husband-and-wife team Heidi paying homage to the great classics of chil- and Friedrich Oetinger, and identifies many dren’s literature, the volume also includes pirated copies, most of which were printed in the comic strips and novels such as Hesse’s Demian former Soviet Union. Judging from these copies, and Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. This Soviet readers seemed to prefer Karlsson on the Roof controversial choice will spark debate – and to the international favourite Pippi Longstocking. that may be the most important contribution This bibliography takes readers on a fascinating of this attractively designed book. literary tour of the globe and pays tribute to the Jochen Weber unifying power of children’s literature. Barbara Scharioth

No. 3 – 2005 / 53 IBBY’s new director of communications and projects, María Candelaria Posada, introduces herself and compiles her first ‘Focus IBBY’ selection of articles and notices on IBBY activities. She draws particular attention to IBBY’s tsunami project and to the forthcoming (2006) IBBY congress in China

Arrival at IBBY

How has IBBY achieved so much with its scarce resources? There is only one answer: its membership. IBBY people, mostly working volun- tarily, give the organization its most valuable asset: experience and

Focus IBBY knowledge.The commitment of the membership shows in every one of the current 64 National Sections and this became even more evident during the discussion following the tsunami tragedy in South East Asia. This brings us to where this column should have started: my arrival at IBBY! On Monday 3 January,I sat for the first time at this desk in Nonnenweg in Basel, Switzerland. But I had been here before, in 2004, as a member of the Andersen Jury, and I remember thinking with admiration: this is a no-nonsense place, with only the essential things needed to run an international organization – telephone, fax, two computers and a large meeting table. But when I took up my new position at the beginning of the year, the discussions relating to authors and illustrators were replaced by concerns about the disaster in the Indian Ocean and the hundreds of people who lost their lives, the thousands that were made homeless and in particular the suffer- ing of the children. Compiled by During my first week the e-mails came in ceaselessly: members of MARÍA CANDELARIA POSADA IBBY sections and the Executive Committee all wanted to know how IBBY was going to react – especially in the countries where Edited by IBBY had representation.This discussion was very instructive for me ELIZABETH PAGE – I could experience IBBY’s network at first hand and was able to reconfirm what I have known for a long time: the best thing about IBBY is the people who belong to it. As the new IBBY director of communications and project develop- ment, my main objective is to improve communication within the worldwide IBBY organization and to increase co-operation with the Maria Candelaria Posada is IBBY’s director of communications and rest of the world of children’s literature.Another task facing us is the project development issue of fundraising – indispensable for the continuation and better- Elizabeth Page is IBBY’s director of administration ment of our activities.

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Last year Kimete Basha, the former executive Reading to Recovery has been devised and director, had begun to upgrade the IBBY website. the Japanese section of IBBY (JBBY) has been This is now completed and by now all of you will lobbying very successfully for financial support. be familiar with its new look, its greater capabilities It is essential for us to remember that what and its potential as a communication and informa- moves IBBY to act on behalf of the less favoured tion tool. Over the years, we hope that it will national sections, in response either to natural become much more than just a website: it will be a tragedies or to endemic poverty, is the spirit of place for learning, a place for sharing, a place for the organization to promote international creating.There is no real limit to what a website can understanding through children’s books. There offer: the only thing needed is, again, the enthusi- are many fundamental concepts behind these asm of the IBBY members. Every idea, every words: a belief in equity and tolerance and a comment, every suggestion will be welcome. respect for diversity.And once more it becomes clear that these ideals can bear fruit because of Our hope for the new IBBY the people who hold them. The fundamental website: that it will become spirit of IBBY is its special sense of caring. much more than just a The main reason for my emphasis on the website; it will be a place for people in IBBY is because what this organiza- learning, sharing, creating tion can give to its members is much more than money: it is knowledge and it is know-how. Let me return to the tsunami tragedy: because In the future I would like to introduce more it was decided that the region would benefit emphasis on educational tools, in the form of from money donations rather than a donation of seminars, workshops and conferences, through books, a collection was set up. Out of our intense the internet and printed publications; tools that discussions, new projects have begun to be will help to empower the national sections to formed. Successful projects that have been fulfil their mission. undertaken by IBBY sections around the world I can only finish my first contribution to Focus are being carefully looked at for their potential IBBY by saying how proud I am of becoming an to be implemented elsewhere. For the region IBBY person. devastated by the tsunami, a project called María Candelaria Posada

The tsunami collection

When the special collection was first launched, IBBY did not expect to attract a large amount of money; many people had already privately sent donations to various relief organizations. We are very grateful to the sections and individuals who immediately sent contributions: IBBY Greece, IBBY Iceland, IBBY Netherlands, Leena Maissen and Kathy Mere-Kerr. We are very pleased to announce that the collection has benefited from significant sums generously given by two Japanese compa- nies:Yamada Bee Farms and Say-zan-sha Publications.With this support, we will be able to contribute to books projects in the Aceh Province in

No. 3 – 2005 / 55 FOCUS IBBY

northern Sumatra, as well as to projects in India,Thailand and Malaysia through the IBBY sections. The idea of healing through reading, which is the ‘There is not a single sorrow essence of the planned projects in the stricken area, that an hour of reading was put into practice by the Banco del Libro in cannot take away.’ Venezuela in 1999, when the devastating floods not – Montaigne only killed many people, but also left hundreds of families without their homes or possessions. Bibliotherapy is the name given by specialists to the practice that anyone who has read to a small child knows well. As Montaigne expressed it:‘There is not a single sorrow that an hour of reading cannot take away.’ It is good to know that IBBY has a specific function in disaster areas. And that with very little technology, important and therapeutic help can be given: all that is needed is an adult who can read and a book.

Books for Africa, books from Africa

When the 29th IBBY Congress in South Africa was over, IBBY made a promise to return. Two projects are already in their planning stages: one is a virtual exhibi- tion of books for and from Africa.The books selected for this exhibition must be published in the local language(s) of the region of the project, or in bilingual editions.The project is primarily aimed at helping teachers, parents and specialists to learn how to choose children’s books.Although many of the biggest publishing houses of the world have a strong pres- ence in Africa, they publish in languages that do not include the local languages. IBBY has a strong belief that children should be able to read in their mother tongue, especially as a child’s first contact with literature is normally through oral interaction in the form of rhymes and songs told to them by their mothers or grandmothers. It is also universally accepted that children who are talked and read to as infants develop better language and reading skills later. The second project is one focusing on workshops for writers, illustra- Two IBBY projects: an tors and – most importantly – future publishers. Little good can come from encouraging creators if exhibition of African books there are no means to disseminate their creations. In published in local these times of huge multinational publishing houses languages and workshops that prefer ‘global’ books, there are real opportuni- for writers, illustrators and ties for small and independent publishers that future publishers produce indigenous books to find a market.

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China 2006

The 30th IBBY World Congress 20–24 September 2006 Beijing, China Congress Theme: Children’s Literature and Social Development

Call for papers for seminar sessions

The congress committee invites those interested in making a contribution to the congress to apply for participation in a seminar session. Several parallel seminar sessions with ten-minute contributions will be offered in English or in Chinese. The purpose of these sessions is to provide an opportunity for the presentation of academic papers as well as non-academic reports. Ten-minute contributions are invited on the following themes: • The submission must be accompanied by the 1. Literature of Ours – Children’s Forum (all applicant’s full name, nationality, title, mailing the speakers will be children) address, telephone, mobile, fax and e-mail. 2. Children’s Literature and Ethics • The congress committee will select the semi- 3. Children’s Literature and the Ideal World nar speakers by 1 November 2005 and notify 4. Children’s Freedom and Space accepted applicants before the end of the year. 5. Children’s Books and the Multimedia Era • It is understood that all seminar speakers will 6. Developing Trends in Children’s Picturebooks pay the congress registration fee. 7. Reflection on the Phenomenon of Harry Potter 8. Reading of Underprivileged Children Applications should be addressed to

Bridging Consulting Co. (Beijing) Ltd, Requirements for presentations at the Room 305, Building 6 Yonghejiayuan, seminar sessions No.3 Dongbinhe Road, Dongcheng District, • Applicants must send a one-page summary, Beijing, 100013, China; not exceeding 250 words, in English or Attn: Mingzhou Zhang, Chinese, by regular mail, fax or e-mail. IBBY Congress 2006 Organizer • The presentation can be in English or in Fax: +86-10-51026642 Chinese. Or by e-mail to: [email protected] • The deadline for submitting applications is 31 August 2005. CBBY website: www.cbby.org

No. 3 – 2005 / 57 FOCUS IBBY

Preliminary programme 2006

Wednesday 20 Sept Thursday 21 Sept Friday 22 Sept Saturday 23 Sept Sunday 24 Sept

9:00-10:30 9:00-10:30 9:00-10:30 Plenary session 1 Plenary session 2 Plenary session 3 10:30-11:00 10:30-11:00 10:30-11:00 Coffee break Coffee break Coffee break 11:00–12:30 9:00–16:00 11:00–12:30 11:00–12:30 Seminars Registration Seminars Seminars Bookbird associate editors’ meeting New and outgoing IBBY Executive 12:30–14:00 12:30–14:00 12:30–14:00 Committee meeting 9:00-12:00 Lunch Lunch Lunch IBBY Executive 14:00–15:30 Committee meeting 14:00–15:30 Seminars Optional half-day Seminars Forum and open debate tours on the future of IBBY IBBY general assembly 14:00–15:00 15:30–16:00 15:30–16:00 Press conference Professional groups: Coffee break Coffee break Authors/translators Illustrators 16:00–18:00 16:00–18:00 Librarians/educators IBBY Honour List Seminars Presentation of Forum and open debate diplomas on the future of IBBY

20:00 17:30 17:30 Reception by Beijing Closing ceremony Opening ceremony Municipal Government 20:00 20:00 (subject to final Farewell dinner Andersen Awards Social events Social events confirmation) Programme of Gala reception IBBY-Asahi Reading entertainment Promotion Award

This preliminary programme is subject to alteration

Alfaguara VIII Novel Award 2005

This year’s winners of the prestigious Alfaguara Award are the well- known authors Graciela Montes and Emma Wolf, both from Argentina. Their books for children are popular in Latin America as well as in other countries. The prize-winning novel, co-written by Montes and Wolf, is called El turno del escriba [The time of the scribe]. Graciela Montes says: ‘Our fortune, in every sense, is immense’(www.gracielamontes.com). The story takes the form of a historical novel that is set in Genoa, Italy in 1298.When an imprisoned scribe learns that his new cell companion is Marco Polo, he plans to write a book about Marco Polo’s travels, thus giving him the opportunity to make a bid for his release.

58 / BOOKBIRD E BOOKBIRD: A JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S LITERATUR OOKBIRD is a refereed journal, published quarterly (in January, BApril, July and October) by IBBY, the International Board on Books for Young People. Though it is a journal that upholds the highest standards of academic rigour, with core ACADEMIC PAPERS ON CHILDREN’S LITERATURE from all over the world, it is also the magazine for EVERYONE professionally involved with or interested nationally. in children’s literature inter I wish to take out an annual subscription to Bookbird. Whether you are engaged in RESEARCH in international children’s Name (individual or institution): literature; LECTURE on it or TEACH it; work with children’s books IN CLASSROOM; recommend and BUY BOOKS for school or college THE Full postal address, including postal or ZIP codes and country: or public children’s libraries; EDIT, PUBLISH or SELL children’s books; WRITE or ILLUSTRATE books for children and young people; or just LOVE them – BOOKBIRD has something to interest YOU. Subscribe today, or you may miss something you should have read! Enter appropriate amount for your type of subscription: “The latest BOOKBIRD positively bristles with ideas and individual rate (US$40/Can$64) ______Can$56) ______y, and I love the new editorially eclectic approach.” IBBY member rate (US$35/ energ institutional subscription rate (US$75/Can$120) ______Roger Sutton, Editor in Chief, The Horn Book Add the appropriate postal charge if you are outside US/Canada: “Warmest and wildest congratulations on the ’new look’ BOOKBIRD” US$8 for individual subscribers ______ribers ______Jay Heale, independent children’s book expert, South Africa US$10 for institutional subsc US$5 if you are in Mexico ______“The new-look BOOKBIRD is wonderfully lifted and witty, the ly the Please enclose your US$ cheque or draft, or pay by credit card (probab is ): contributions are most interesting. ... the reader’s eye most convenient method for subscribers in Euro or other currency zones caught and the text is easily accessible.“ I wish to pay by Mastercard Visa Barbara Scharioth, Director of the International Youth Library, Munich My card number is Expiry date “Those with professional interests in children’s literature SEND TO BOOKBIRD, C/O UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS, need BOOKBIRD!” 5201 DUFFERIN ST, NORTH YORK, ON, CANADA M3H 5T8 K Kimberley Reynolds, Professor of Children’s Literature, University of Newcastle, U will receive 15% of every book sold!

A gift to the IBBY family

In this lavish tribute to the art of children’s Young People (IBBY). Under the Spell of the book illustration thirty-three of the world’s Moon is a groundbreaking, celebratory most noted illustrators have created original anthology of art for children. The poems, works of art based on a favourite childhood rhymes and riddles in the book are in both text. They have donated the use of their art the original language and in English. Noted exclusively for this book so that a 15% royal- author and editor Stan Dragland has trans- ty from book sales can be given to the lated the texts and a foreword is provided by International Board on Books for .

Under the Spell of the Moon: Available from IBBY at: Art for Children from the World’s Great Illustrators www.ibby.org 0-88899-559-8 or $25.00 US plus shipping and handling from Groundwood Books at: www.groundwoodbooks.com

GROUNDWOOD BOOKS www.groundwoodbooks.com