TDENTIFIEA United States ABSTRACT

`DOCUMENT RESUME , ED 126 458 CS 002 821 AUTHOR Gayer, Mary Virginia i TITLE [Analyiis of Titles Translated from ForeignLanguages .Recommended for Acquisition in Use of Elementary School Libraries.] INSTITUTION Institute for the Intellectual Developmentof Children and Young Adults, Tehran(Irat).; Iranian Commission for UNESCO, Tehran.' United Nations Educational; Scientific, and Cultural Organiza'tion, Paris (France). PUB DATE 72, NOTE .17p.; per presented at the Conference on Children's Litera ure in the Service of International Understanding and Peaceful Co-operation (Tehran,May- 15-21, 1575); Not available in hardcopy due to ; marginal legibility of original document EDRS PRICE MF-$0.83 Plus Postage. BC Not Available fromEDRS. DESCRIPTORS *Aterican Literature; *Childrens Books; *Childrens Literature; Conference Reports: *CulturalExchange; 1* . , Cultural Interrelationghips; Elementary Education; *Global Approach TDENTIFIEA United States ABSTRACT . This report, given at a special meetingon children's literature held in Tehran, presentsan examination of title's from foreign languages which have been recommendedfor acguisitibn and, use ih elementary school librries serving kindergartenthrough grade six in the United States'and which are commerciallyavailable for purchase. The report is based on two lists of title's,of imaginative literature--fiction for grades four through sixand easy reading for preschool through third grade--recommended in"The Elementary School Library Collection: A Guide to ooks and Other Media" and shows that although a vide variety of qulitty publishers in'the United States have issued foreign children's stories, two-thirds haveonly one or two recommended titles in print, mostly froi Europeanlanguages. (JM) 31131141311#311311441################,A4**414141#*#######*######*######**41414141***414141#4141 -* Documents acquired ky ERIC include Many informal unpublished .* materials not available from othersources. ERIC makes every effort * * to obtain the best coplalailable. Nevertheless., itemsof marginal * * reproducibility are often encounter and thisaffects the quality * of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions-ERICmakes available * via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service(EDRS) . EDRS is not onsible for the qualityvof the original document.Reproductions * * supplied by EDRS are the best thatcan be made from the original. * *********************************************************************** MI- < uS OEPATMENT0014EALTH. EDUCATION A WELFARE --4 NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EOUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPFO- DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN- ATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE- SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE'OF EDUCATION POSITION.OR POLICY CHILDRENS LITERATURE IN THE SERVICEOF INTERNATIONALUNDERSTANDING AND PEACEFUL CO_OPERATION .0......11.**..ft $14. 11 N I- ORGANIZED BY THE ft? IN6T I TUTE FOR THE INT LECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDRENAND YOUNG ADULT S MIN a/OPERATIONW ITH UN CO AND THE NATIONAL COMMISSIONFOR UNESCO IN IRAN 2 15_21 MAY 1975 TEHRAN C! BEST AVAILABLEC61). AlPF 1. /ASA. ildren's Lit aturc in the Service of International Understanding and PeacefulCo-operation Tehran, 15-21 qax-A272 Mar Virginia Gaver (x) U.S.A. rt ra This brief paper is-intendeeto present an analysis of titles translated fry! foreign languages.which have been recomm4dd0 for acquisition and use in elementary schbol librariesserving kinder- garten through grade sixin the United States 4 end which arecommer- Cially available for purchase (that is, in print).It' is,based upon the listing ofthose titles of imaginative' fiterature in thetwo classes of Fiction (for grades 4-6) and theso-called Easy Class (pre-school through third grade),recommended in The Elementary School LibraryCollection: A Guide to Books and 0 herMedia, edited by Phyllis ItanOrden. 9th ed. (New Brunswick, NJ ro-Dart Founlition, 1974. $24.95).This publication b gun in 1965, has beenissued annually since that date (with irreguar s p lements)and is at the present time widely usedas a guide to prtzchase by many elementaryschool libraries throughout the country. Itsscope includes approximately 10,000 citations (titles) of which three-fourthsare books and one- fourth are filmstrips, recordings, transparenciesand other, forms of non-print; of thetotal, 2695 titles fall.in the Fictionand Easy classes. ('x)- The author is professor . Emeritus u gers the State University of New Jersey; and Editop, The Elmentary School Library. Collecttion, Editiois one through 8. The Bro-Dart Foundation, 1965 -1973 3 -2- It is assumed that a look at the translatedtitles in the two classes of stories in this bibliography will Providesome insight into -works by ncn- Engligh speaking authors providedin many elementary ,schools through their libraries. In recentyears such factors as the Frankfurt Book Fair, IBBY, the AndersenMedal, and other similar activities of publishers and librarians, ave resulted'ina steadily increasing interchange of publicatinn betweendifferent countries; !t) this has not only been true of publicationof.authrors for adult rea- r ders but has also been Speciallyso for authors and illustrators of hooks for children-. It has ofcourse been true,for generations of interchange among English-speakingcountries - Great Britain, Austrd- lia,'Canada, and theUnited.States- and in Tact, fiction originally published in England makesup a sizable proportion of the titlespro- vided (6(fr children in the UnitedStates. As authors for children in- - crease their productivity in Australia and Canada,their works are-also being made available to,chIldren in thiscountry. These have, however, been excluded from the presentanalysis. It should also be pointed out thit this 'study further excludes (forreasons of time only) the great wealth of titleS in.theDewey classed of 290, 398,. and 883, most of which are essentially re-tellingsof traditional lore and literary epic, from a great varietyof .cultures. -3- Table I (Appendix) shlvis the numberof authors and titles in- cludeJ in the Fiction and Easy classesby language in the Elementary schdol Library Collection, 9th Edition(hereafter referred to as . - E$LC 19). Works of translat4d autho'rsrepresented in ESLC /9.- Study of the data on a purely quantitatiVebasis indicates that this biblio- greop.hy recommends for elementaryschool children stories from twelve different non- English speakingcr.luntries,.by 66Clifferent authors (three:are duplicated in thetwo classes)and115 different titles. It may not be particularly surprising, though it is worthyof note, that all but-me author al.European in origin (countingthe Russian land-mass as European);one Japanese author reprernts the greatma- , jority of 'countries outside ofEurope. Another obvious characteristic of children's Literatu're inthe United. States (related tocountry of origin) is the wealthof authors of foreign origin, inmany cases first generati- Americans, who write in Englishand whose original publication is in the United States.A survey of titles listed in ESLC /9 reveals such noted examplesas Dhan Gopal.sMukerji, the d'Aulaires, Tarn Yashima, Kate Seredy,°Roger/Devoi,sinand Louise Fatio, Meindert DeJong, Yashiko Uchida, Erick Maugaard, (/- Kyra Petrovskaya Wayne, Sulamith Ish-Kishor and many others, whose names bear witnessto their foreign origi but whoare 'either bi-lingual or write in Englishand are first published in the U.S. Thewriter believes that Isaac Baashevis Singer is the only citizen of the United Stateswho writes for children ina foreign language (Yiddish) andwhose works therefore must be translatolt. Another aspect 4)4 be noted is the retellingof 5 such standard authors, as Baron Munchausen, Miguel de Cervantes, and -4- de la Motte-Fouque, whose works have been retold (but not directl' .146nslated)in terms enjoyable by children below twe veyears of age. :.0 particular concern here is that these titlesrepresent iess than five percent (.3g%). f the total number of stories recommended in both Fictin and Easy Classes'for children'sre ding or story-i/ . s ( telling. ) The predominance of Scandinavian authors this list is per- k haps due not only to writing and publishing activities in Denemark, Sweden, Finland and 14orway but also to theclose relationship between publishets and librarians of the U.S. and Sbeuridinaviaextending over at least fifty years, if not longer. Publishers and producers.-,As to who publishesor. produces .of titles which hhve been recommended fir children in ESLC /9,it was found that 41 different publishers/producersare represented here by 115'different titles. A few are relatively new and stillsmall houses, such as FourWinds, J.P O'Hara, Delacorte,,Criterion, Pantheon; ,all but two however could definitely be classifiedas "quality" house; - firms whose'name one connotes with quality publication,as a rule, both in format and in content. Of. the 41, 34are United States. publishers, one is Danish (Fhensted),-and sixare producersfwho issue (x) - No cmmparison has been made withthe ChildrenlsoCatalog (12th edition W.Y. HW Willem Company, 1971+ suppl.) but it is doubt- ful that there would be much diefferencebetween the two. Whethere the proportion is low or high is a-subjective matter,and' depends on,what is available from publishers. 6 -5c only recordings or sound filmstrips.One of the pUblishers (Viking), I. issues both books and audiovisual materials basedon their own book publications. The range in number of titles issued isone to thirteen; thirteen firms have published three

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