2007 VOL 45, NO. 4

Ethics and Holocaust literature • Yang Hongying – popular Chinese author • Japanese art and picturebooks • South African children’s literature after apartheid • Institut Charles Perrault • German Youth Literature Prize at 50 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), Nina Christensen (Denmark), Penni Cotton (UK), Hans-Heino Ewers (Germany), Jeffrey Garrett (USA), Elwyn Jenkins (South Africa),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)

Guest reviewer for this issue: Marion Allsobrook

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

Cover image: AKABA Suekichi Suho no shiroi uma (Suho and the white horse) 1967

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 © 2007 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 2006-2008: Patricia Aldana (Canada) President; Elda Nogueira (Brazil) and Ellis Vance (USA) Vice-Presidents;Anastasia Arkhipova (Russia), Niklas Bengtsson (Finland), Hannelore Daubert (Germany), Reina Duarte (Spain), Elena Iribarren (Venezuela/France),Ahmad Redza Ahmad Khairuddin (Malaysia),Ann Lazim (UK), Ira Saxena (India) Voting Members; Zohreh Ghaeni (Iran) Andersen Jury President; Elizabeth Page (Switzerland), Director of Member Services, Communications and New Projects; Urs Breitenstein (Switzerland),Treasurer; Valerie Coghlan (Ireland), Siobhán Parkinson (Ireland), Bookbird Editors

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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

GHTFUL AND FIT THE SECOND: THOU GRAVE Holocaust Narratives and the Ethics of Truthfulness Lydia Kokkola | page 5

The Ideal World of Yang Hongying LI Lifang | page 13

South African Children’s Literature Lifting the Stones of Apartheid Beverley Naidoo | page 18

Picturebooks: Art that Traverses Time and Culture SHIMA Tayo | page 27

THIRD: SUCH QU SAND T THE ANTITIES OF FI Children’s Literature Studies/Projects around the World 11: Institut International Charles Perrault, France Virginie Douglas | page 36

THE FOURTH: W FIT RAPPED UP IN A FIVE-POUND NOTE Children’s Literature Awards around the World 9:The Changing Face of Children’s Literature: 50 Years of the DJLP – German Youth Literature Prize Hannelore Daubert | page 41 FIT THE F SHIP IFTH: OF SHOES AND S AND SEALING WAX Postcards from around the World | interleaved Books on Books | page 50 Focus IBBY | page 57

The quoted stanza is from ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ by Lewis Carroll.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

books like Doing It (Melvin Burgess, UK) and Sugar (Julie Burchill, UK), which are explicit about Editorial under-age sex and drugs. There is parhaps a fear that relinquishing the idea of innocence leads inevitably to wickedness, but the opposite of innocence does not have to be guilt – it can be experience, knowledge, awareness. If innocence hat and how much do we tell children, and is a simple – or simplistic – idea, letting go of Whow do we tell it? These questions go to innocence as a founding principle of our thinking the heart of much critical discussion of children’s about childhood leads to complexity rather than to literature today.Western readers and critics have long degeneracy. since abandoned the idea of childhood as a time of Part of that complexity is our constant search for innocence – an idea that the Chinese author Yang the right way to interact with childhood and with Hongying (whose apparently delightful work is children.We have never had so many protocols and discussed in this issue by LI Lifang) not only takes laws and aspirational statements about the protection for granted but is explicitly committed to in her life of children and about children’s rights. It is as if, in as well as her work.This interpretation of childhood abandoning the simple and rather endearing – but as an innocent time seems to be a cultural assumption also potentially dangerous and thoughtless – idea of in China, and at least some other Asian countries. innocence as the natural mode of childhood, we If Western thinking about children’s literature, and have opened ourselves up to an endless complexity about childhood, has moved away from the idea of of experience. childhood innocence,Western societies are constantly Children’s literature is, of necessity, at the heart of debating childhood and our responsibilities to children. these debates: do we protect children, in our stories, We have never been so aware of the physical, from the truth, or do we expose them to it? How emotional and sexual abuse of children, their economic much truth can children bear? How much do they and even military exploitation and the educational, want or need to hear? And what kinds of protection nutritional and health deprivations to which children do we enforce, and what kinds do we strip away? are so often subject, and in face of this awareness, it Lydia Kokkola, in her article focusing on Holocaust seems contradictory to think of childhood as an fiction in this issue, picks a careful and subtle path innocent dream that adults can create and sustain in through an ethical puzzle, debating authors’ (and children’s books. publishers’) responsibilities, on the one hand, to Adults often express the anxiety that anything goes history and the truth and, on the other hand, to in children’s literature now, or at least in literature their young and vulnerable readers.These issues also for young people, and they are deeply shocked by underlie Beverley Naidoo’s discussion of the need for a literature that addresses children’s own history Bookbird editors and culture. It is refreshing, then, and hopeful, to read SHIMA VALERIE COGHLAN is the librarian at Tayo’s extraordinary statement – in her rich and the Church of Ireland College of Education in Dublin, Ireland. She lectures on and fascinating account of how Japanese art has influenced writes about children’s books and has a picturebooks for children both in Japan and in other particular interest in picturebooks. countries – that ‘true art flows in the direction in SIOBHÁN PARKINSON is a writer of which it is most needed’.What an intriguing idea fiction for children and adults (young and otherwise) and a professional editor. and how thrilling to see children’s literature and illustration through a lens so clear and so humane!

4 / BOOKBIRD H t h o e l

o E c t h a u i c s s t

o N f a

T r r r a When fiction deals with real historical u

events, what is its responsibility to the t t i

truth? And what about its responsibilty to h its readers? Lydia Kokkola raises questions v f e

about the very nature of historical fiction for u children, and proposes an interesting s l

n distinction between secrets and lies a n n the late 1980s, Wayne Booth (1988) drew critics’ attention e s back to the idea that literature has the potential to affect the d

ways in which readers think, believe and act in the real world. s I Issues that, thankfully, never deserted evaluations of texts for young readers, despite attempts to do so in mainstream literary criticism. Ethical criticism, as Booth defined it, does not simply ascribe a value judgement – ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – to a particular text; it considers the entire range of responses a text may inspire. So although moral by LYDIA KOKKOLA judgements are certainly one kind of response, laughter, tears, rage and boredom are also responses that ethical criticism can investigate. That is, ethical criticism seeks to describe how encounters with a storyteller’s ethos affects readers’ ways of being. An ethical critic functions as a mediator between the text and the reader in order to assess the impact a particular text is likely to have on

a particular reader (Sell 2001). Thus I assume that reading Holocaust Lydia Kokkola is docent (associate professor) at fiction will affect children’s ability to think about both the historical Åbo Akademi University events and their own lives. Implicit in my assumption is the idea that and acting professor at Turku University, Finland HOLOCAUST NARRATIVES

some books are likely to have a more educationally Ethical criticism considers sound or beneficial impact than others; that some may the entire range of responses be better equipped to put ‘a “face” on the horrendous a text may inspire facts and events’ than others (Totten 2001). Part of the task of an ethical critic is to determine what kinds of responses individual texts are likely to produce. But Booth was not only concerned with literary critics. He argued that all readers have ethical responsibilities. Thus Booth’s model moves beyond the obvious considerations of authors’ responsibilities to readers and, perhaps, to the truth towards a more dynamic approach in which critics, readers and authors all have a responsibility to one another, to those whose lives are used as material and – most significantly for this paper – to the truth. Truth, particularly historical truth, is not a fixed, monolithic entity. If we compare the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s journey of 1492 with the 500th anniversary in 1992, we see a profound change.Whilst the former celebrated European civil- Historical truth is not a isation and conversion of the savages, the latter fixed, monolithic entity showed sensitivity to the sufferings of those who were colonised (Wilson 1999). The historical facts had not changed but people’s interpretations of them had. Yet even when we recognise that historical truths are subject to change in ways that truths in the hard sciences are not, we still need guidelines.When I talk about truthfulness, I am not trying to suggest, as I think Geoffrey Short (1997) does, that history books and historical novels should contain similar information. On the other hand, I am not condoning the overlooking of historical facts.We can define the limits of accept- ability by examining cases at either end of the spectrum. A well-known Danish novel which falls at the extreme ‘untruthful’ end of the spectrum is Anne Holm’s I am David. In this prize-winning novel, David escapes from a concentration camp under the supervision of a guard who cuts off the electricity in the fence long enough to enable David to climb through. David then embarks on a long lonely trek across Europe to Denmark where he is reunited with his mother.Although there are occasional mentions of them (Nazis), most of the novel is set in peace- time Europe where Italians are not allied to them and Americans can take vacations in their own cars. In Representing the Holocaust, I argued that this novel is so historically inaccurate that the praise it has received as a depic- tion of the Holocaust is ‘tantamount to Holocaust denial’(Kokkola 2003). I am David is an extreme example, but its popularity makes it a perfect example of what happens when authors, critics and readers fail to live up to their responsibilities to the truth. Anne Holm did not set out to write an historical novel: the text is clearly a costume novel. Holm

6 / BOOKBIRD HOLOCAUST NARRATIVES appears to have been interested in the processes of self-discovery, self- healing and the moral lessons that may be learned from the Holocaust. As a fantasy, it has many strengths. If it were simply billed in this way, I would have fewer quibbles with its popularity. However, by tying itself to an historical event, however loosely,the novel can be criticised for its lack of responsibility to the truth. I am suggesting that part of the critic’s responsibility to the truth is to draw ordinary readers’ attention to historical inaccuracies. Indeed, I am far more disturbed by critics’ acceptance of this novel as being a Holocaust novel than I am about Holm’s lack of historical realism. Holm’s decision to locate her moral story of self-awakening in the Holocaust is distasteful and insensitive, but she neither awarded her novel major prizes nor put it on lists of recommended supplementary reading for schoolchildren learning about the Holocaust. I feel that critics have failed in their role as inter- mediary between the general reader and this particular costume novel. Readers also have a responsibility towards the text and the truth. Obviously I am more disturbed by adult readers – critics, teachers, parents – who fail to note and comment upon I am David’s gross historical distortions than I am of children who take it literally. Nevertheless, this novel is pitched at an audience who should be sophisticated enough to recognise that although the line between fiction and faction may be blurred, it is neither irrelevant nor insignificant. That is, whilst the pre-teen readers of I am David cannot be expected to have the necessary background knowledge to recognise all the allusions to historical events, I would expect them to recognise David’s journey across central Europe as being a fantasy. Having taken an extreme case of historical distortion, I’d now like to turn this problem around and take a text at the other end of the truth- fulness spectrum.That is, I want to examine a Holocaust novel which is too truthful. Miriam Steiner-Aviezer’s The Soldier with the Golden Buttons is focalised through Biba, a I am David can be criticised girl who is so young she cannot understand every- for its lack of responsibility thing she witnesses. She is even excited by her first to the truth deportation because she finally gets to travel by train. For the most part, this use of the child’s perspective as a filter is very effective, but the novel also contains an event which is depicted so truthfully it is startling. After her second deportation in a cattle car, soldiers guide Biba and some other children through a beautiful valley to an abandoned settlement. Here, the children are locked in a hut where they suffer from heat, thirst and lack of air. Eventually the door is opened and the older children are allowed out. Biba is nearly locked in, but she forces herself out and is

No. 4 – 2007 / 7 HOLOCAUST NARRATIVES

inspected by the soldier with the golden buttons of the title. Biba survives the inspection and remains outside. She and the older children are forced to watch whilst the soldiers pour what Biba assumes to be water, but which more knowledgeable readers will recognise as kerosene, over the hut containing the younger children.The hut is set on fire, and the children are burned to death. No attempt is made to spare the child reader from the full horror of the scene. The text includes graphically detailed descriptions of a devices to make the truth more accessible to girl’s burning body writhing with pain. The young readers. The use of the child as filter is screams of the children, the melting bones and usually very effective in preventing children from the smells are painstakingly described for six knowing more than they are ready to know. In gruelling pages. In this brutal representation of The Soldier with the Golden Buttons, an older girl is atrocity,no attempt is made to deploy any of the taken away to be raped, but the text merely states narrative techniques usually used to spare child that the soldier with the golden buttons and a fat readers. On the contrary, the use of the non- officer ‘eyed her, told her to turn round and raise comprehending focaliser further compounds her skirt. They consulted each other, and at last the brutality of the representation by lulling the the fat officer nodded and the soldiers came and naïve reader into a false sense of security. took her. She went quietly,unresisting, as though prepared - not glancing back once.’ As Eve Tal I find The Soldier with (2004) points out, ‘The gap of knowledge the Golden Buttons between the reader and the focaliser generates an to be too truthful irony that serves to protect the reader from the full horror of the events.’ In The Soldier with the Golden Buttons, Steiner- Using a child character as focaliser is also Aviezer has lived up to her responsibility to the effective for older readers. Gudrun Pausewang’s truth at the expense of her responsibilities to The Final Journey, originally Reise im August, her young reader. Let me be clear: I am not deploys this perspective. Tal notes that the suggesting that children should be spared all German title underscores the focaliser’s naïveté graphic details, but I am saying that I think it is as it suggests she is going on holiday.The novel possible to communicate with young readers ends with Alice, tipping back her head under without the raw cruelty of this scene, and the shower, expecting ‘soon, water would pour without taking advantage of the child reader’s down over her from the nozzle up there. The naïveté. As a critic, I admire the power of water of life. It would wash her clean of the Steiner-Aviezer’s text enormously,but I cannot, dirt and horror of the journey’. That the and do not, recommend it to young readers. showerhead delivers gas is revealed in the I find this work to be too truthful. afterword, allowing young readers a moment to The above-mentioned texts are extreme; most distance themselves from the character before Holocaust novels deploy various narrative learning of her fate. In her discussion of The

8 / BOOKBIRD HOLOCAUST NARRATIVES

Final Journey, Sarah Jordan (2004) suggests that Devices intended to spare Alice’s gradual awakening to the truth of the the child can ultimately Holocaust mirrors the way modern children result in an evasion should learn of it. Initially it is important to of the truth shield them from what is often a disturbing truth, but eventually children do need to be So where should the boundary between educated about what happened … The final ‘educating without overwhelming’ and evading lines of Alice’s story … illustrate the fact that the truth be drawn? As a temporary solution, I there are always some things that we should wish to explore the possibility that any device keep from children and perhaps even from some which limits the amount of truthfulness depicted adults. More mature children here will know would be acceptably responsible, but that any that gas, not water, will come out of the nozzles, device which distorts the truth is unethical.To put but it is not necessary to tell this part of the that in more ordinary terms, I am asking whether story. It is sufficiently upsetting in this story there might be a relevant ethical difference to see Alice alone and suddenly thrust into between secrets and lies. Lies distort history understanding; we do not need her to realize and, like I am David, should not be classified as she is about to die for this story to be effective. Holocaust literature at all. Secrets merely omit truths which the child is not equipped to bear. Although I disagree with where Jordan places One novel which foregrounds the relation- the boundary as to how much truthfulness is ship between silence and secrets is Jane Yolen’s ethically responsible in Holocaust literature, her Briar Rose. This novel blends the story of basic argument in favour of ‘educating without ‘Sleeping Beauty’ with the history of the Holo- overwhelming’ is surely sound. caust to create an unusual detective novel.This Jordan’s overview of the main narrative tech- odd combination succeeds in communicating niques used to protect child readers from knowing with its intended audience in large part due to more than they are equipped to bear implies that its reticence. Becca, the protagonist, has grown all are equally ethically responsible. For the most up hearing the unusual versions of ‘Briar Rose’ part, the use of filtering and other devices such as allegory,interpictorial allusion and ellipsis which I am asking whether there enable the text to communicate on different levels might be a relevant ethical depending on the reader’s level of background difference between knowledge and reading sophistication are genuine secrets and lies attempts to communicate in a manner that acknowledges the child reader’s more limited her grandmother, Gemma, tells. After Gemma’s understanding without dishonouring the truth. death, Becca finds a number of documents Alternatively,as Naomi Sokoloff (1992) points out: indicating, to her surprise, that Gemma is a ‘Entrance into the child’s inner life and personal Holocaust survivor. Becca travels to Poland in world or misunderstandings may constitute an search of the truth.There she meets Josef, a gay evasion of collective moral questions.’ In other man who was incarcerated in Sachenhausen words, devices intended to spare the child can (Sachsenhausen). He helps her rebuild Gemma’s ultimately result in an evasion of the truth. history: her attempted gassing (in a van which

No. 4 – 2007 / 9 HOLOCAUST NARRATIVES

fed exhaust fumes into the back) and rescue by a band of partisans near Chelmno.The novel ends with Becca’s return to the USA to share her family history. In this novel, Gemma’s story is as much a secret for Becca as it is for the reader. Sharing the task of reconstructing the truth from odd snippets of information is not only intriguing and appealing, it also honours Gemma’s inability to tell her own tale. Gemma recovers from her experiences to the extent that she is able to raise her daughter and care for three grandchildren, but she never recovers her ability to narrate her experiences.The only way she can explain what has happened to her is to recreate the story of Briar Rose using alterations and metaphors that only make sense in the context of her life story. This use of silence to indicate the problems Gemma faces in integrating her past with her present, her loss of voice and, therefore, agency as a survivor passing on her tale to her community, is a powerful means of presenting the enormity of the events. The secrets in this text bear resemblance to real-life secrets of omission, but do not tell lies. As if to confirm this point,Yolen concludes with a note stating:‘This is a book of fiction. All the characters are made up. Happy-ever-after is a fairy tale notion, not history.I know of no woman who escaped The secrets in this text from Chelmno alive.’ So my tentative suggestion that bear resemblance to whilst lies can never be condoned, secrets might have real-life secrets of omission, a place in Holocaust literature for young readers but do not tell lies might seem to be supported. And in the case of any given individual work, this might prove a useful yardstick.The problem is that when numerous individual works follow the same pattern, secrets become lies. In A Past Without a Shadow, Zohar Shavit (2005) draws on a large corpus of novels in order to identify general patterns of absence in German children’s literature (see also Schlant 1999). Her thesis is that most of the books which are published emphasise the suffering of the majority of the German population at the expense of that of Europe’s Jewish population. My interpretation of Shavit’s findings is that authors such as Hans Peter Richter are pleading for understanding from a younger generation of Germans: the generation that has been forced to bear what Gillian Lathey (1999) describes as ‘The Impossible Legacy’ of ‘inherited responsibility’.And it seems to me that there is a real need for such intergenerational communication in German children’s literature. However, when such works become the norm, another form of rewriting history seems to be taking place. A more widespread rewriting of history that can be discerned only when looking at Holocaust literature en masse arises from the desire to

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Children’s books cited Bitton-Jackson, Livia [1997] (1999) I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust New York:Simon and Schuster Holm,Anne [1963] (1995) I am David Toronto: Reed Books [also available under the titles North to Freedom and David] Matas, Carol (1993) Daniel’s Story New York:Scholastic Pausewang, Gudrun (1988) The Final Journey (originally Reise im August) New York:Penguin Steiner-Aviezer, Miriam [1977] (1988) The Soldier with the Golden Buttons Tel Aviv: Moreshet Yolen,Jane (1992) Briar Rose New York:Tor

the novel did not want to enable young readers The need to present the to doubt the Jews’ victim status, but they inad- victim as perfect results in vertently removed the possibility for reflection problems in portraying on the kinds of mental anguish such victims events truthfully experienced. In individual novels, the presentation of provide ‘redeeming meaning’: a celebratory likeable, albeit passive, Jewish characters usually attitude towards life and survival. One manifes- works, but when only these types of books are tation of this is the way in which victims and their available, one could be forgiven for thinking families are presented as thriving on adversity. that millions of saints were murdered whilst the In this they differ markedly from diaries written rest of the world looked on aghast. As Hamida at the time, which show how the cramped Bosmajian (2002) notes: conditions, lack of food, boredom and fear played havoc with interfamilial relationships. In To be sure there were victims with such I Have Lived a Thousand Years, Bitton-Jackson goodness; to be sure there are victim-survivors pauses amid her extended description of the with such care, but they are not the norm; squalor of the ghetto to exclaim,‘I relish it all. however, it is as a norm that the reader will I am part of every life. And every life is part of perceive them.The humane, if not saintly mine. I’m a limb of a larger body. I enjoy the inmate, is as rare as is the Christian rescuer of toilet line most. It’s long and slow moving. One Jews – another privileged topic in literature for has time to connect, and talk.’ Her joy, though the young … Given that kind of focus, the perfectly possible, seems wholly out of place and untutored reader may indeed conclude that the utterly unlike contemporary accounts. camps brought out the best in the victims and This need to present the victim as perfect that Christians, given their values, were results in problems in portraying the events inevitably disposed to rescue the Jews. truthfully. Carol Matas was ‘corrected’ by her publisher for having her character, Daniel, Individually,most works of Holocaust literature refer to Jewish police in the ghetto (Bosmajian are sufficiently historically accurate and respectful 2002; for a fuller discussion, see Kertzer 2002). of those whose lives were used as material. Ye t Apparently the museum that commissioned the pattern that emerges when one compares

No. 4 – 2007 / 11 HOLOCAUST NARRATIVES numerous works is no longer ethical. And so I Authorial Strategies in Children’s Holocaust Literature’ Children’s Literature in Education 35 (4): 199–218 suggest that not only authors, readers and critics Lathey, Gillian (1999) The Impossible Legacy: Identity and must behave ethically, but publishers also must live Purpose in Autobiographical Children’s Literature Set in the up to their responsibilities to the truth and to Third Reich and Second World War Berne: Peter Lang those whose lives have been used as material. Schlant, Ernestin (1999) The Language of Silence: West German Literature and the Holocaust New York:Routledge Sell, Roger D (2001) Literature as Communication Amsterdam References and Philadelphia: Benjamins Booth,Wayne C (1988) The Company We Keep:An Ethics Shavit, Zohar (2005) A Past Without a Shadow: Constructing of Fiction London: University of California Press the Past in German Books for Children New York:Routledge Bosmajian, Hamida (2002) Sparing the Child: Grief and Short, Geoffrey (1997) ‘Learning through Literature: the Unspeakable in Youth Literature about Nazism and the Historical Fiction, Autobiography, and the Holocaust’ Holocaust New York and London:Routledge Children’s Literature in Education 28 (4): 179–90 Kertzer, Adrienne (2002) My Mother’s Voice:Children,Literature, Sokoloff, Naomi B (1992) Imagining the Child in Modern and the Holocaust Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press Jewish Fiction Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP Kokkola, Lydia (2002) ‘The Unspeakable: Children’s Tal,Eve (2004) How Much Should We Tell the Children? Fiction and the Holocaust’ in Roger D Sell (ed) Chil- Available online: www.eve-tal.com/litcrit.html dren’s Literature as Communication: The ChiLPA Project Totten, Samuel (2001) ‘Incorporating Fiction and Poetry Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins pp213–33 into a Study of the Holocaust’ in S Totten (ed) Teaching Kokkola, Lydia (2003) Representing the Holocaust in Chil- Holocaust Literature Boston:Allyn and Bacon pp 24–62 dren’s Literature New York:Routledge Wilson, Norman J (1999) History in Crisis: Recent Directions Jordan, Sarah (2004) ‘Educating without Overwhelming: in Historiography London: Prentice Hall International

KOUKLINA depicts the way one contemporary family deals with divorce. Although her divorcing parents try to behave in a ‘modern’ or ‘civilised’ manner, the divorce upsets their child’s emotions and routine. After their separation, Lina withdraws and becomes an introvert. She stops going out with her friends; during chorus meetings, she pretends to sing but she does not use her voice. She starts playing with her dolls again. She reveals secrets only to her cat. In addition, she does not react as she once did whenever she is called ‘loaf of bread’ because she is overweight. However, VOULA MASTORI everything changes when she receives a number of email messages led Crazyboy. from an unknown person cal KOUKLINA Mastori describes the psychological world of adolescence with tact, honesty and sensitivity. She sympathises with the difficulties Athens: Patakis 2006 and adversities most young people undergo in the process of developing maturity. The author further appeals to her teenage 208pp ISBN 9601619755 readers by using modern narration techniques as well as youthful (fiction, 12+) language and by incorporating modes of contemporary communication such as email chatrooms. The author is the Greek nominee for the 2008 Hans Christian Andersen Medal. Vassiliki Nika

12 / BOOKBIRD Y T

LI Lifang introduces the work of the Chinese h e a

author Yang Hongying, who has been writing I n for children for more than 25 years. Her works d e

have sold more than 10 million copies and a g l

she has become the most popular author W

among Chinese children o H r l he seed of a pure and lively ideal of children’s literature d

o was first sown in Yang Hongying when she taught o f T Chinese in primary schools. She found that of all the texts n they read, the kind that her pupils most enjoyed was the ‘scientific

fairy tale’ – a story that uses fantasy to explain scientific facts to g children – such as Xiao ke dou zhao Mama [The Polliwog finds Mom] by Fang Huizhen and Sheng Lude (1955).Yang Hongying y began to devise her literary world in response to children’s needs. i She was trying to find a creative way between science and literature. n Learning from books and field work, she accumulated a lot of

material. Her peculiar literary ability makes boring knowledge g about the natural world into enchanting pro-ecological stories and creates a new humane approach to nature. Her first story, Chuan jiu sheng yi de zhongzi [The seed wearing a life jacket] (1981), was very well received.After that,Yang Hongying created a large number of scientific fairy tales concerning animals, plants and natural phenomena. She worked for about a decade on these short ‘scientific fairy tales’; then she started to write general fairy tales, and again she worked for about a decade in this genre, in the creation of which she accumulated a rich experience. At the end of the last century, she returned to the creation of long scien- tific fairy tales. Xiao waren you da hai [The little frogman dives into the sea] (1999), Zai jian ye luo tuo [Goodbye wild camel] (1999) and Shen quan tan zhang [The divine dog detective] (2000) are all important contributions that she made to the corpus of original by LI LIFANG scientific fairy tales. They are all about the earth’s ecological environment: the ocean, the desert and the forest. This author’s extensive vision of creation is very prominent in the contemporary context of children’s literature in China. She introduced science to the general world of children’s literature, a perspective that converges on the trend of children’s literature all

over the world. LI Lifang lectures in the College of Literature at Although she had been publishing children’s books since 1981, it Lanzhou University, China was not until a decade later that Yang Hongying attracted public THE IDEAL WORLD OF YANG HONGYING

She has a concept of childhood innocence as a standard for literature

attention.The fairy tales she published between the late 1980s and the 1990s focused much attention on her. Once she started to write fairy tales, the idealism of the fairy tale became her personal pursuit. She has a concept of childhood innocence as a standard for litera- ture, and she does her best to achieve the aesthetic ideal of the innocence of childhood in her work. Yang Hongying has always pursued a kind life and she hopes that the world will be renewed in line with the natural life of children: innocent, beautiful, selfless and harmonious, no cheating and no sophisti- cation, a life that is happy because it is simple. This is the natural pattern of life in childhood, according to Yang, but it is also a spiritual height, a way of life and even a philosophy that adults should aim for too. Yang Hongying The ‘happy village’ is a paradise of love and also The long fairy tale Qin ai de BenBen zhu [Dear an ideal mode of life Pig BenBen] (2004; previously published, 1989, under a different title) is based around this Yang Hongying has sought to have such pig character. BenBen has a stupid appearance. values generally recognised, and many of her He is not attractive, but he is kind-hearted and fairy tales express this ideal, for example Xun unselfish, he always thinks of others and he zhao kuai huo lin [Searching for the happy makes his friends happy. woods] (1992), Zui haoting de sheng yin [The Yang Hongying has made a reflection on the most beautiful voice] (2001), Huan le shi zhe meaning and value of life the subject of many [The joyful envoy] (1993) and Feng ling er ding of her fairy tales. Fei e yuan wu qu [Short moth’s dang [The clanking campanula] (1995). To waltz ] (1983), Zhui gan tai yang de xiao bai shu highlight her ideal,Yang Hongying has repeat- [Little white mouse catching up with the sun] edly created the image of a ‘happy village’ in her fairy tales. The ‘happy village’ is a paradise Her animal characters have of love and also an ideal mode of life. emotional lives and their One important character from this happy life stories are credible village is a foolish little pig called BenBen.

14 / BOOKBIRD THE IDEAL WORLD OF YANG HONGYING

(1987), Kui hua zhen de gu shi [The story of Sunflower Town] (1997) and Bei fang de lang [Wolf of the north] (1997) are representative works of this type. The long fairy tale Dujia cun de mao er gou er [Dogs and cats in the holiday village] (1993) broke artistic conventions. In this book, people and animals are on the same stage. The fantasy takes place in a realistic location, removing the Every child needs realistic distinction between the fantasy world and the real works about his own times world, but without creating a sense of artificiality, as might have happened in more usual fairy tales. In doing this,Yang has created a new aesthetic psychology.This novel approach has had outstanding results.Yang Hongying seems to have a natural ability to enter the world of animals. She is concerned about animals in real life and is able to draw on her sympathy with animals to create animal characters in her stories. Her animal characters have emotional lives and their life stories are credible. She has used the fairy tale to create a tragicomedy involving children and animals. The sympathy with cats and dogs that is at the heart of ‘Dogs and cats in the holiday village’ laid a solid foundation for her subsequent work. The long Nage qi lun xiang lai de Mi Er [Mi Er riding on a wheeled box], which appeared in 1998, is a milestone in Yang Hongying’s creation of fairy tales.The fantasy character Mi Er won broad popularity among children, and Shen mi de nü laoshi [The mysterious (female) teacher] (2002) is a sequel to that book. I once talked with Yang Hongying and she told me that every child needs realistic works about his own times. In this seemingly simple state- ment, there are profound ideas about the function of children’s literature. Her first work of realistic fiction, Nüsheng riji [Girl’s diary] (2000) was written when Yang’s own daughter was going into the sixth grade in primary school. Since it was published in 2000, Nüsheng riji has been very popular among Chinese children. It has been reprinted more often and has sold more copies than any other book, and it has enjoyed the longest run of success. It has helped considerable numbers of children to get safely through a critical time in their lives. Motivated by this success, Yang Hongying has continued to be energetic in her production of realistic fiction. In 2001 she launched Wu san ban de huai xiaozi [Naughty boys in class 5–3], a book about a group of cute little boys. In response to children’s demands, she published Nan sheng ri ji [Boy’s diary] in 2002, which was warmly welcomed by children. She launched Piaoliang laoshi he huai xiaozi [The beautiful teacher and the naughty boys] and the first six books in the Tao qi bao Ma Xiaotiao [The naughty boy Ma Xiaotiao series] in

No. 4 – 2007 / 15 THE IDEAL WORLD OF YANG HONGYING

2003, and became very well known among children as the creator of this character, Ma Xiaotiao. She has continued to publish books in this series, and is currently at book 16, which was published in 2006. So far, these books have sold 8.9 million copies. Ma Xiaotiao is the most obvious example of Yang Hongying’s ideal child. His emergence indicates a new period in the liberation of tradi- tional Chinese concepts of childhood, and he is a prominent figure in Chinese children’s literature, which has a history of nearly 100 years. Why is Ma Xiaotiao so attractive? He is most original, and has not been contaminated by the hypocritical adult world. He is simple, he always tells the truth, he expresses his feelings honestly. He is kind- hearted and sympathetic, he likes small animals, and he selflessly serves his classmates and is naturally helpful to others. He is brave and can never bear injustice.And he is humorous.Yang Hongying has created a three-dimensional character in Ma Xiaotiao, and no description in two dimensions can match it. The appearance of the Xiao Mao riji [Diary of Smiling Cat] series in 2006 marked a new stage in Yang Hongying’s work. Describing several lifestyles, events, experiences and beliefs is the basic thinking of Xiao Mao riji. The first set consists of three stories: Bao mu gou de yin mou [The watchdog conspiracy],Ta ding shang de mao [The cat on top of the tower], and Xiang bian cheng ren de houzi [The monkey who wants to become a man].The three stories have a similar writing style but differ in their intrinsic feelings.The first is about the love-hate relationship between a sheepdog and a watchdog, and concerns the self-destruction of a sausage dog because of jealousy. The whole story is rich in suspense and strange circumstances. The second story is more markedly symbolic, and the characters are strongly metaphorical.This book is rich in graceful imagery and is apt to arouse the poetic imagination and direct the emotions towards a desire for the ideal life. ‘The monkey who wants to become a man’ is the Ma Xiaotiao’s emergence ultimate expression of the author’s philosophy of indicates a new period in life, being about the rules that govern the survival of the liberation of nature and creatures. The implications of this story traditional Chinese are deep, but it is a humorous and interesting story. concepts of childhood Smiling Cat was the cat of Du Zhenzi in the Ma Xiaotiao series, and the active involvement of the characters from the Ma Xiaotiao series makes the plots interesting and brings details that appeal to children.Although the cat is not in a dominant position, it impresses readers deeply because it is extraordinary. It can smile with a lot of expression of feelings. It can smile, guffaw, sneer,

16 / BOOKBIRD THE IDEAL WORLD OF YANG HONGYING grin, smile derisively, give a bitter smile, a false smile and so on.This is a thinking cat, a wise cat. Although the Smiling Cat series has deep roots in the stories of Ma Xiaotiao, the overall aesthetic style and ethos of It can smile, guffaw, sneer, the author have greatly changed, and it is a brand new series. Undoubtedly, the Smiling Cat stories grin, smile derisively, give show that the author has reached a spiritual realm a bitter smile, a false smile in art, and she creates a corresponding special and so on. This is a feeling in her readers. All the characteristics of thinking cat, a wise cat her earlier work are merged in this new work. In the Smiling Cat series, Yang Hongying shows her super abilities in structuring and shaping different characters, but the most prominent feature of this work is the humorous tone and the use of colourful detail.Yang Hongying is good at creating the emotions appropriate to the life described within each story. It is the free arrangement of the complexity and depth of emotions and ideas that makes her works always significant. Smiling Cat demonstrates that the author’s observations and thoughts about life have entered a new realm.

Shanyi and her family travel to China to see the land where her grandparents live and where her parents were born. Shanyi doesn’t remember much about her first trip to China when she was only 3 years old, so this time she is determined to write a journal and collect all the details to share with her friends. The child’s first-person narrative is richly enhanced with photographs on each double-page spread. The photo essay has its own unique narrative and will delight So readers of all ages. Sungwan While in China, Shanyi visits members of her es to China extended family, the Panya Safari Park where she is Shanyi Go fascinated by the white tigers and the pandas, as well London: Frances Lincoln 2006 as a number of historical landmarks. Trying on a new ley, CA: Publishers’ Group West 2006 outfit for the New Year celebration, eating traditional Berke Chinese foods and experiencing Chinese religions 36pp ISBN-13: 9781845074708; complete her visit. A glossary is included. This book ISBN-10: 184507470X will have special meaning for immigrant and adoptive (non-fiction picturebook, 4 –8) families and great appeal for anyone planning a trip to China. Jeffrey Brewster

No. 4 – 2007 / 17

: e d r i u t e a r h e t t i r L

a s ’ n p e r A d

l i f h o C

s n a e c i r n f A o

t h t S u

o Apartheid is over, but Beverley Naidoo e S believes that ‘we have to understand from h

t where we have come’. Writing from both personal experience and a professional g perspective, she traces developments in

n South African children’s literature from the i

t mid-20th century to the present day f i The history of children’s book publishing in South Africa is in many

L ways a history of the influence of British colonialism,Afrikaner nationalism and the suppression and exclusion of black South African by BEVERLEY NAIDOO authors (particularly those seeking to write for children).

(‘Amandla Ebali:The Power of the Story’, an exhibition of South African children’s books, National Library of South Africa, Sept 2004–Jan 2005 )

mandla Ebali’ opened in Cape Town during the first ever

Born in South Africa and now IBBY congress on the African continent. This historic based in Britain, Beverley Naidoo is a writer for children exhibition, covering nearly two centuries, offered viewers and young people ‘A the chance to consider how children’s books both reflect and shape LIFTING THE STONES OF APARTHEID ways of seeing. I was pleased to find my first two While animals were South African novels included, despite their having been written in exile and published in frequently humanised, Britain. Journey to Jo’burg (1985) had been black people were banned in my home country until 1991, the essentially brutalised year after Nelson Mandela’s release.Although its sequel Chain of Fire (1989) had escaped banning, brothers – encouraged me to imagine a European one South African reviewer had written: world. Books were part of the process of making invisible and inaudible the experience of black This extraordinarily powerful and gripping South Africans. Most books in English were novel should be compulsory reading in South published in Britain and most stories set in Africa’s white high schools. It won’t be. Africa featured animals. The latter were largely (Pat Schwartz, SA Weekly Mail, 30 June 1989) ‘boys’ books’ built around robust tales of hunting and adventures in the bush. My brother had a A culture of censorship operated not only copy of the most famous of these – Jock of the through official channels but was deeply Bushveld by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, first published ingrained within the minds of the ‘gatekeepers’ to in 1907 and in print ever since. The dog Jock children’s reading. In 1991, when I made my first was portrayed as far more intelligent than any journey back freely into South Africa, an incident black character.When black people appeared in confirmed this. I asked the manager of a major such stories, they were usually portrayed as NGO that was sending boxes of books into black savages, servants or comic buffoons. While schools whether my recently ‘unbanned’ Journey animals were frequently humanised, black people to Jo’burg would now be included. No, I was told were essentially brutalised. and, without any embarrassment, she added that Most children’s stories in Afrikaans were also their mining company sponsors would think the set in the rural veld and involved animals.We read story was ‘too political’! It took a further fifteen them during Afrikaans lessons in school. I even years before this little book, in its 21st year in remember crying over the death of an animal print, was approved for use by South Africa’s (was it an old lion, or an elderly baboon?) that National Department of Education. had featured in a series. Other tales portrayed stoic Afrikaner families heroically facing the A culture of censorship was challenges of ‘pioneer’ life in the bush. Afrikaans deeply ingrained within the literature in the first part of the 20th century minds of the ‘gatekeepers’ served to promote the language. Respectability to children’s reading in print helped make it distinct from its Dutch heritage and furthered Afrikaner identity. I was born during World War II in Johannesburg This was the context in which ‘oppositional and the books in my English-speaking home publishing’ emerged in the 1970s. Ravan Press and whites-only school established for me that was one of the small alternative publishers that Europe, even though it was 6000 miles away, had a radical impact by providing an outlet for was central to ‘our’ consciousness. Most of my the creative well of politically energised, critical childhood stories – whether by Enid Blyton, writing emerging from black townships. Despite George MacDonald, Perrault or the Grimm suffering bans, its publications, including its

No. 4 – 2007 / 19 LIFTING THE STONES OF APARTHEID

literary magazine Staffrider, helped writers and readers exchange critical debate and develop a literary culture that engaged with the realities of apartheid. It opened doors. For example, South Africa’s well-loved storyteller, writer and dramatist Gcina Mhlope, today the author of many books for children, including Stories of Africa (2003), and a great reading ambassador, had her poetry first published in Staffrider. While most radical publishing was directed towards an adult readership, it was young black people who, in 1976, changed the course of history. With their rebellion against apartheid – many They wrote as witnesses hundreds shot dead, many thousands imprisoned and of their own oppression others fleeing abroad – they demanded to be heard. A seminal example of Ravan’s early publishing for children was The Story of Mboma as Told to Kathy Bond by Mboma Dladla (1979), illustrated by Mboma and his friend Mdidiyela Mbatha. The words were simple, vibrant and shocking. Here, for the first time, was the voice of a young black child – a child labourer – telling his own story.A few years later, during the State of Emergency,when once again many thousands of young black South Africans were caught in the fire of impassioned resistance, Ravan published Two Dogs and Freedom: Children of the Townships Speak Out (in collaboration with The Open School, 1986). The young people’s words, reproduced in their own handwriting with their own illustrations, could not be denied. They wrote as witnesses of their own oppression. Ravan also recognised the complete lack of fiction for young people that engaged with apartheid reality. In 1984, Ravan published Father Come Home by Es’kia Mphahlele whose autobiography of childhood, Down Second Avenue (published in the German Democratic Republic in 1959), had been one of the books that had helped to open my own white South African eyes. In Father Come Home, Mphahlele told the story of a rural black teenager’s search for his missing father after the Natives’ Land Act in 1913 drove thousands of black people off the land to seek work in the cities.This was historical fiction that related to the present, reflecting the suffering of individuals in a wider social, political context. It was totally unlike the historical fiction of the prolific white writer Jenny Seed whose novels were well known abroad as well as in South Africa. Despite her sympathy with various black characters, in her striving for ‘historical balance’, Seed always steered clear of anything that implied critical judgement of the colonial process itself. Mafangambiti:The Story of a Bull by TN Maumela (with illustrations by Duke Ketye), was an inspired publication by Ravan around 1985. It had first been published for schoolchildren in Tshivenda. Sadly now out of print, it has the quality of a classic.Vividly written with imagination and

20 / BOOKBIRD LIFTING THE STONES OF APARTHEID ingenuity, this story of a fighting bull had Case’s Love, David (1986).While vividly evoking slipped through the censor’s net.Probably Bantu the bleak poverty of the Cape Flats, she celebrated Education Department officials had regarded the humanity of her characters. Here was an this story as a simple rural tale. But Maumela’s author writing from ‘inside’ a community story was actually highly symbolic of an African deeply damaged by apartheid. In her richly spirit that refused to be subdued and conquered, autobiographical novel 92 Queens Road (1991), even by the white man with his gun. about a young girl growing up ‘Coloured’ in Cape Town, her character’s naïve but probing As apartheid fractured, eyes burrowed deeply and poignantly into fiction was a zone for apartheid’s silences. crossing borders Prejudice and discrimination, of various kinds, became woven into the fabric of various Alternative publishing houses sought to stories by white writers, whether directly or publish black writers and to redress the silencing indirectly. Lesley Beake in A Cageful of Butter- of voices. But by the mid-1980s, mainstream flies (1989), acknowledged a real Mponyane publishers were also recognising the need to (her central character) who could neither hear publish stories that engaged young readers with nor speak ‘but he gave’. She set her moving a contemporary context. Inevitably, white Song of Be (1991) amongst Namibia’s writers predominated, although some were frequently despised Ju/’hoansi people. In The exploring very different worlds in their fiction Day of the Kugel (1989), Barbara Ludman from their own childhoods.As apartheid fractured brought her white American teenage character under political and economic pressure, fiction headlong into South Africa in the middle of was a zone for crossing borders. For example, 1976 during the Soweto uprising. Both Paul Tafelberg, an Afrikaans publishing house, Geraghty in Pig (1988) and Lawrence Bransby published Maretha Maartens’ Sidwell’s Seeds in in Homeward Bound (1990) each created a Afrikaans in 1984 and later, in translation, in school setting in which a white teenage boy English. Maartens’ characters live in Crossroads, underwent change through getting to know a near the stinking sewerage works and the black character. rubbish dumps that people scratch through daily, searching for any scraps that might help A vast chasm existed between them stay alive. At the heart of the story is the actual experience of young Sidwell’s imagination and his ability to most young black South keep an open heart in the midst of a brutalising Africans and what was environment.While Maartens may have had no being offered in fiction overt political intent, for many of her white readers this fine short novel must have been an But however sensitively these and other eye-opener. admirable writers for young people explored Maskew Miller Longman’s Young Africa such subject matter, there was little to match Series, initiated in 1986, also featured work that the power of Mafangambiti in expressing the would speak more directly to young South depths of emotion and anger stirred within the Africans of all backgrounds.The first winner of human soul by oppression. Indeed a vast chasm the MML Young Africa Award was Dianne existed between the actual experience of most

No. 4 – 2007 / 21 LIFTING THE STONES OF APARTHEID

young black South Africans and what was being reflected nothing of what apartheid did to offered in fiction. The non-racial educational children’s lives.There were a few exceptions in magazine UPBEAT (funded by SACHED, an books published outside South Africa.A curious NGO) played an invaluable role in motivating young child might perhaps have asked a parent its readers to write and send in their own or teacher why young Jafta in the delightful stories. It validated their experiences in print Jafta books (1981) by Hugh Lewin, illustrated and encouraged them to read, including adult by Lisa Kopper, could not live with his father in books that might speak to them, sometimes town. Similar questions might have been asked publishing extracts in comic book form.Writer by enquiring readers of Rachel Isadora’s At the and activist Chris van Wyk was closely involved Crossroads (1991), where a group of children and co-edited with Lizeka Mda an impressive wait through the night for the homecoming of collection: Voices from Young Africa: The Best their fathers who have been working far away Writing from UPBEAT Readers (1991). in the mines. Amongst South African publications during In Soweto fewer than ten apartheid, I regard three picturebooks as libraries serve a population ‘milestones’. Our Village Bus by Maria Mabetoa, of three million illustrated by Mzwakhe (1985) – both black South Africans – is a humorous story about a In the post-1994 publishing world, market bus full of lively individuals who have very concerns predominate. Who can afford books practical solutions to a leaking bus on an and who will buy them? For the majority of isolated muddy road.The characters’ irrepressible young South Africans, their only chance of zest of spirit subtly undermined old stereotypes reading is through school or library.Yet books of unsophisticated rural people. Charlie’s House in schools are scarce and in Soweto, for by Reviva Schermbrucker and illustrated by instance, fewer than ten libraries serve a popu- Niki Daly (1989) takes readers into the shanty lation of three million. There are enormous town where Charlie lives with his mother and challenges, in a country of eleven mother grandmother.The dedication is to a real Charlie tongues, in addressing the significant lack of a Mogotsi who lived in a shelter for six years. reading culture.This is the focus of Cape Town’s The story reflects human resilience and cele- Centre for the Book. Its website contains an brates the creativity of a child’s imagination excellent paper on the situation by the writer and dreams. The third book, Ashraf of Africa by Elinor Sisulu (2004). Ingrid Mennen and Niki Daly, illustrated by Picturebooks also reflect history. Sisulu wrote Nicolaas Maritz (1990), challenged the tradi- the moving The Day Gogo Went to Vote, illustrated tional stereotype of children in Africa living in by Sharon Wilson (1996), about a young girl’s the bush with animals. Ashraf, who lives in a grandmother who is determined to have her say city that has the excitement of a jungle, has only in South Africa’s first democratic elections. First seen lions in his library book! The latter two published abroad, it was published subsequently books were subsequently both published by Tafelberg in a number of indigenous abroad. languages. It is an important book, capturing The early 1990s saw the development of the the historic moment through a child’s eye. Little Library series that later became the During the apartheid era, most picturebooks Cambridge Little Library Reading Kit (1996).

22 / BOOKBIRD LIFTING THE STONES OF APARTHEID

In 2004, New Africa Books and Biblionef. At the IBBY congress in Cape Town in 2004, New Africa Books displayed a displayed a wonderfully wonderfully diverse, multilingual collection of diverse, multilingual books created by African writers and illustrators collection of books by from across the continent.Two years later, most African writers and were out of print. It should be noted that the illustrators. Two years South African government adds a tax on books later, most were out of print through VAT. In conclusion, contemporary South African The process began with workshops involving fiction presents a very different world from that collaboration between black and white authors, of my childhood. Urban settings vie with rural illustrators, editors and teachers. Positive images ones in a changing country where we have of black children were now seen as a priority new possibilities.When my daughter Maya and with an explicit focus on folk tales, humour and I co-authored Baba’s Gift, illustrated by Karin gentle everyday adventures. Littlewood (2004), our characters’ journey It has fallen largely to organisations like the contained none of the old apartheid hazards. Early Learning Resource Unit (ELRU) and the However we should not deceive ourselves. Project for Alternative Education in South New political freedoms cannot wipe away past Africa (PRAESA) to publish books that give and present realities. Poverty is entrenched and voice to children who otherwise rarely appear AIDS has taken over from apartheid.The imag- in books. Author and artist Reviva inative novel Skyline by Patricia Schonstein Schermbrucker has been active with both Pinnock (2000) hums with the stories of new organisations, creating and collaborating on a African migrants, challenging readers to see range of books that manage to be fun while rising xenophobia. As we move forward, I reflecting the tougher realities of everyday life believe we have to understand from where we for many children. She is also the innovative have come. Hence my own need to write Out creator of An African Christmas Cloth (2005), in of Bounds (2001), seven stories each set in a which she has embroidered an advent calendar different decade, covering my lifetime, through alive with stories and bursting with visual apartheid and into ‘post-apartheid’. As Arch- jokes. She has also been trying to get funding bishop Tutu says in his foreword: ‘There is a for black first-time writers to create texts by beast in each of us and none of us can ever say relating their childhood experiences. This we would never be guilty of such evil.’ project – vital for writers and society alike – still has no funder. Poverty is entrenched Both ELRU and PRAESA promote multi- and AIDS has taken over lingual resources. Yet the stark truth is that from apartheid publishers struggle to keep books in black South African languages in print.While multi- Apartheid and the migrant labour system lingual publishing is critical to reader fractured black families, separating husbands development, especially in the extremely poor from wives, parents from children. While it is rural areas, it is largely dependent on subsidies amazing how many black South Africans main- by organisations such as First Books in Print tained their dignity and humanity in the face

No. 4 – 2007 / 23 LIFTING THE STONES OF APARTHEID

Children’s books cited Beake, Lesley (1989) A Cageful of Butterflies Molope, Kagiso Lesego (2002) Dancing in the Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman Dust Cape Town: Oxford University Press Beake, Lesley (1991) Song of Be Cape Town: Molope, Kagiso Lesego (2005) The Mending Maskew Miller Longman Season Cape Town: Oxford University Press Bransby, Lawrence (1990) Homeward Bound Mphahlele Es’kia (1959) Down Second Avenue Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman Berlin: Seven Seas Publishers Case, Dianne (1986) Love, David Cape Town: Mphahlele Es’kia (1984) Father Come Home Maskew Miller Longman Johannesburg: Ravan Press Case, Dianne (1991) 92 Queens Road Cape Naidoo, Beverley (1985) Journey to Jo’burg Town: Maskew Miller Longman Harlow: Longman Dladla, Mboma (Mboma Dladla and Mdidiyela Naidoo, Beverley (1989) Chain of Fire London: Mbatha illus) (1979) The Story of Mboma as Collins; (2004) Puffin Told to Kathy Bond Johannesburg: Ravan Press Naidoo, Beverley (2001) Out of Bounds Duiker, K Sello (2006) The Hidden Star Johan- London: Puffin nesburg: Umuzi Naidoo, Beverley and Maya Naidoo (Karin Fitzpatrick, Percy (1907) Jock of the Bushveld Littlewood illus) (2004) Baba’s Gift London: London: Longman; (1948) Cape Town: Puffin Longman Pinnock, Patricia Schonstein (2000) Skyline Geraghty, Paul (1988) Pig Cape Town: Maskew Cape Town: David Philip Miller Longman Rapola, Zachariah (2001) Stanza on the Edge Isadora, Rachel (1991) At the Crossroads Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman London: Julia MacRae Rapola, Zachariah (2006) Stanza and the Jive Lewin, Hugh (Lisa Kopper illus) (1981) Jafta Mission Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman (and others in this series) London: Evans Schermbrucker, Reviva (Niki Daly illus) Ludman, Barbara (1989) The Day of the Kugel (1989) Charlie’s House Cape Town: Songololo Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman Books/David Philip Maartens, Maretha (1985) Sidwell’s Seeds Schermbrucker, Reviva (2005) An African (Madeleine van Biljon trans) Cape Town: Christmas Cloth Johannesburg: Jacana Tafelberg Sed, Max (Sophie Peters illus) (1994) Mafia and Mabetoa, Maria (Mzwakhe illus) (1985) Our the Aeroplane Cape Town: Human and Rousseau Village Bus Johannesburg: Ravan Press Sisulu, Elinor Batezat (Sharon Wilson illus) Maumela,TN (Duke Ketye illus) (c 1985) (1996) The Day Gogo Went to Vote London/ Mafangambiti:The Story of a Bull (Diana New York: Little Brown; (1997) Cape Town: McCutcheon and Norman Tshikovha trans) Tafelberg Johannesburg: Ravan Press The Open School children (1986) Two Dogs and Mennen, Ingrid and Niki Daly (Nicolaas Freedom: Children of the Townships Speak Out Maritz illus) (1990) Ashraf of Africa Cape Johannesburg: Ravan Press/The Open School Town: Songololo Books/David Philip UPBEAT readers (1991) Voices from Young Mhlope, Gcina (2003) Stories of Africa Africa:The Best Writing from UPBEAT Readers Scotsville: University of Natal Press Johannesburg:The Sached Trust

24 / BOOKBIRD LIFTING THE STONES OF APARTHEID of that destruction, there are terrible legacies. The abuse of women and children is a major one. I wish Mafia could travel Another is that many black teachers and students through every classroom and lost respect for each other when young people every library in the land turned against their apartheid schools. Indeed there was a wider breakdown between the generations that is not easy to repair.This breakdown lies at the heart of Mafia and the Aeroplane by Max Sed (writing name for Maren Bodenstein), illustrated with woodcuts by Sophie Peters and published in English and Afrikaans in 1994, the year of our first democratic elections. It is the beautifully told story of young Mafia, who lives on the streets, and a wise old man who teaches him about buildings, aeroplanes and much, much more. I wish it could travel through every classroom and every library in the land, its words translated into every mother tongue. Sophie Peters’ haunting pictures need no translation.They ask us to look again – as if into a mirror.This is us.This is our world.What have we to say? Sadly,this little book was only printed once. A buried gem, like Mafangambiti. Surely, we cannot afford to be so wasteful. Most important, a new generation of writers is needed to reflect our diversity and today’s concerns. We especially need the talent of many more black writers like Zachariah Rapola, author of Stanza on the Edge (2001) and Stanza and the Jive Mission (2006) and Kagiso Lesego Molope, author of Dancing in the Dust (2002) and The Mending Season (2005). Molope’s wonderfully vivid female characters are especially important, giving voice to perspectives silenced in the past. K Sello Duiker’s posthumous novel The Hidden Star (2006) – both magical and real – is testimony to an inventive, perceptive and extraordinarily sensitive young writer. Duiker understood and cared deeply about the condition and creative potential of South Africa’s young in our scarred society. His tragic death in 2005 reminds us how much we need to value such literary talent. Our teenage democracy will be judged by how it serves all our children. With the country’s massive technical and scientific skills shortage, literature is not on many people’s radar.Yet as the struggle continues to lift the stones of apartheid and to create a more humane society, literature – our stories of who we are and can be – has a vital role to play. Literature should be every child’s right to enjoy. As the Cuban hero, political activist and writer, Jose Marti said: ‘Literature is the most beautiful of countries.’

A version of this article was published by Nätverket Den hemliga trädgården 3/ Världsbiblioteket, Stockholm, Sweden, 2006

No. 4 – 2007 / 25 Jean-Michel Coust eau, president of Oce en an Futures Society, dorsed ONE WELL as ‘a much needed drink us thirst for those of ing to protect our pla net’s threatened water supplies’. Like Kids Can Press’s best seller IF THE WORLD WERE A VILLAGE, t his book takes a comp make lex topic and s it immediately unde rstandable. Today, alm cent of the ost 20 per world’s population la cks access to clean wa In one hundred y ter. ears, when there may p be 10,000,000,000 eople on Earth, acces s to water will be a g Enviro lobal problem. nmental educator Stra uss presents the conc readable pro ept, in se, that all water on ROCHEL Earth is interconnecte LE STRAUSS and finite. Readi d ng her clear explanati (il w ons, young readers lus Rosemary Wo ill understand firstha ods) nd the need to conser our glo ve and protect bal well. ONE WELL: THE Althou STORY OF WA gh packed with inform TER ation, this attractive ON EARTH format book w large- ill not intimidate you ng readers. A typical spread offers in a la Toronto: Kids C rge font a few paragra an Press 2007 Addi phs of text. 3 tional information is 2pp ISBN-13: 9781 arranged bite-sized in 553379546; Colourful sidebars. ISBN- non-technical but illu 10: 1553379543 minating illustrations on every page. H appear (non-fictio elpful notes to guide n, 8+) parents, guardians an teachers are provided. d Glenna Sloan

Karim, 12, lives with his parents, an older brother and two younger sisters in Israeli-occupied Ramallah. Their lives are controlled by soldiers who patrol the neighbourhoods and institute curfews that can last for days. During these times, the family members are trapped together inside their small apartment, a situation that leads to frayed nerves and frustration for everyone. Children have little opportunity for play, and when their school is destroyed, they have even fewer activities to occupy their time. Karim finds a friend in Hassan, a boy from a nearby refugee Elizabeth Laird and Sonia Nimr camp, and together they reclaim a piece of land that has been covered with rubble, turning it into a A LITTLE PIECE OF GROUND football pitch. Told through the eyes of Karim, the story paints a bleak portrait of Palestinian life under London: Macmillan Children’s Books 2003 occupation and includes affecting details such as the Chicago: Haymarket Books 2006 father’s humiliation in front of his family when they are stopped at an Israeli roadblock. 160pp ISBN 0330436791 Laird is British and Nimr is Palestinian. Their (fiction, 12+) collaboration has also been published in the RAMALLAH (Clavis Netherlands as AVONDKLOK IN .. 2004) and in Germany as EIN KLEINES STUCK FREIHEIT (Arena 2006). Susan Stan

26 / BOOKBIRD A P r t i

t c h a t t

u T r a r v e e r s e b s

T o i m o e

Picturebooks, argues SHIMA Tayo, are a a k means of transmitting universal human n d s

values. Here she outlines the development C

of Japanese picturebooks, traces the u l

influence of Japanese art in Europe, and t describes how picturebooks evolved from art u r nouveau through the interwar period in e Europe and America

rt is an inextricable part of human life. At a level perhaps deeper than politics or religion or any other realm of A human affairs, it is essential to our existence. It invigorates our spirits and purifies our hearts. And art, which is not defined either by national identity or politics, transcends the frameworks of culture, language or creed. It is the source of the passion necessary for individual human beings to survive. Through picturebooks, as IBBY’s founder Jella Lepman under- stood, artists of different ages and working within all sorts of social by SHIMA TAYO frameworks have transmitted the legacy of universal human values, no matter what circumstances their readers might encounter.By understanding the serious role that art can play in our lives and the weight of authors and artists devoted to books in each age of history, we can confirm the genuine importance of our task, as members of IBBY,of putting good books into the hands of children. The art and culture of far-distant countries can have a tremendous SHIMA Tayo is director of Musée Imaginaire, a private library of historical impact, depending on the time and need. This may be quite picturebooks, and supervisor of the Digital Picture Book Gallery, International Library of Children’s Literature (Tokyo) PICTUREBOOKS

mountains were interspersed with valleys filled Through picturebooks with shifting mists and clouds and damp earth. In artists have transmitted this environment, the Japanese developed affinities the legacy of universal for certain aesthetic qualities from which human human values beings can draw spiritual richness.They devised diverse and highly refined artistic disciplines and commonplace today, with the advent of the expressions of these qualities in forms that internet, but it has been going on for a very people everywhere can share. These qualities long time. One might say that true art flows in were found in high-culture arts such as the tea the direction where it is most needed. ceremony, noh drama and dance, but also in the Consider, for example, what happened popular arts and culture of the daily life of the between Japan, a small chain of islands located common people. Indeed, what is curious about along the coast of the Chinese landmass, and the forms of expression cultivated in the Edo Europe, on the other side of the Earth. Since the period is that they were fostered by the merchant 12th century, Japan has had a tradition of class, who prospered in the economy of peaceful recording tales and historical events in the form times, but who belonged to the lowest stratum of of illustrated scrolls.These later evolved into nara the social hierarchy, below not only the samurai e-hon, which were bound books featuring folk ruling elite but also farmers and artisans. tales with colour illustrations. In the Edo period, In the Edo period, from the early 17th century to the mid-19th century, Japan was closed to trade with other the Japanese devised countries, with the exceptions of the Netherlands diverse and highly refined and China, and its people were forbidden to travel artistic disciplines and overseas. During this interlude of prolonged expressions of these domestic peace and with relatively little influ- qualities in forms that ence from the outside, the country developed a people everywhere can share distinctive national character and culture. The primal landscape against which Japanese One of these forms of expression was kusazoshi, artistic expression evolved was one of steep simply bound books consisting of about ten pages mountains covered with dense forests. The richly illustrated and with texts written in phonetic script easy for ordinary people to read. These books are the roots of today’s Japanese picturebooks, and interestingly enough, the time when they originated coincides with the time during which the chapbooks of England began to circulate as a means of building literacy. One type of kusazoshi, the akahon, known for their red covers, featured folktales like ‘Momotaro, The Tongue-cut Sparrow’, ‘Princess Hachikazuki’, ‘Bunbuku’s Teakettle’, and ‘The Battle of the Monkey and the Crab’ – stories that kusazoshi continue to be read by Japanese children today.

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KATSUSHIKA Hokusai (left) The kusazoshi, including the akahon, were like the picturebooks of today Ivan Bilibin The Tale of Tsar Sultan 1905 (right) in that they were created through the close collaboration of storywriters and woodblock print artists.These books, along with the miniature-book type known as mame-hon, were a treasured and intimate part of popular urban life until the end of the 19th century.The picturebooks of the Edo period, as shown here, display many basic features that contributed to the history of picturebooks. The culture and arts that flourished in the peaceful, literate society of the Edo period were discovered by Europe after the opening of Japan in the mid-19th century and introduced at the Paris World Fair 150 years ago. In Europe ukiyo-e prints such as Utamaro’s pictures of beauties (bijin-ga), Sharaku’s portraits of actors (yakusha-e) and Hokusai and Hiroshige’s landscapes and other Japanese arts stimulated an artistic movement known as japonisme. Many are aware that artists of the Impressionist school like Renoir and Whistler were much influenced by the encounter with Japanese art. Less well known, however, is that, coinciding with the period when colour woodblock printing techniques were rapidly developing in Europe, ukiyo-e prints on ‘bird- and-flower, wind-and-moon’ (in other words, nature) themes and printed books of Edo were an important influence on artistic expression in picturebooks produced in Europe and the United States. That Japanese artistic taste should come to have a widespread impact on diverse aspects of art and daily Western artists were life in the West in the late 19th century happened inspired by the idea of quite by accident, but Western artists were inspired by expressing beauty by way the idea of expressing beauty by way of condensation of condensation – appreciating the entirety of nature even within its smallest fragment, as found in the ukiyo-e and Japanese printed books. Perhaps picturebook artists of the West were particularly ripe at that time for this contact with the new ways of seeing things and expressing them to

No. 4 – 2007 / 29 PICTUREBOOKS

be found in arts from a ‘newly discovered’ land like Japan. Confused by the dramatic changes wrought in the late 19th century by the industrial revolution and troubled by deep questions about the meaning of art, artists of the West were quick to embrace the sensibilities the Japanese arts suggested. At the same time, in Japan itself, the pursuit of modernisation following the opening up of the country in the 1850s led people to go overboard in casting aside their traditional arts and culture and ANDO Hiroshige embracing instead the influx of Western ‘civilisation’ and ‘enlightenment’ as they sought to join the ranks of the leading countries of the Western world. They renamed the old city of Edo ‘Tokyo’ and turned their backs on the culture that had flourished and matured for three centuries. Many fine works of art and craft were collected and taken out of the country at this time. They renamed the old city The exodus of ukiyo-e prints made during the Edo of Edo ‘Tokyo’ and turned period, for example, was so complete that for a very their backs on the culture long time it was impossible to study ukiyo-e properly that had flourished and from only those remaining in Japan. matured for three centuries The Jugendstil /art nouveau movement that spread throughout Europe was the response of artists to the mechanisation of manufacturing and the mass-production society following the industrial revolution and the subsequent decline of traditional handcraft industries. The movement also reflected anxieties aroused when Luis Daguerre’s invention of photography in 1839 raised the question whether painting would ultimately become outmoded. Charles Darwin’s The Origin Claud Lovat Fraser Nursery Rhymes 1919 of Species, too, rocked fundamental assumptions about the nature of human existence.The graphic designs produced by Arthur Mackmurdo in 1883 can be seen as an attempt to recreate and restylise nature with the advent of machine technology and science.They can also be seen as the outcry of human beings, who are part of nature.With their intricate flowing lines evoking the energies of change and immortality,these works seem to represent an appeal to keep alive that which is negated in the largely unknown realm of science. The heyday of picturebooks dawned, bringing together the styles of art nouveau and the Secessionists – the Jugendstil movement – that grew out of the sense of fear that machines might come to replace humans. These developments coincided, moreover, with the expansion of picturebook readership, once limited to

30 / BOOKBIRD PICTUREBOOKS

UTAGAWA Kuniyoshi (left) Walter Crane Rumbo Rhymes 1911 (right)

the families of the wealthy and aristocratic, to all strata of society. One of the features of these picturebooks The exodus of ukiyo-e was the inspiration they drew in composition and prints was so complete that forms of expression from ukiyo-e.As an alternative to it was impossible to study the attempt to meticulously express the whole of ukiyo-e properly from only nature, ukiyo-e demonstrated the Asian philosophy of those remaining in Japan seeing the whole in each of its parts. Then came the outbreak of World War I in Europe. Immediately before its close came the October Revolution in Russia and the birth in the Soviet Union of a socialist state on a colossal scale. Picturebooks for children were first used for the educational functions of the state in confronting the problems of literacy in a vast nation. In dealing with the masses, no line was drawn between art and politics, and information and propaganda were disseminated through radical new avant-garde expressions. The poets, meanwhile, did not forget to ask children: ‘What are you going to be when you grow up?’ and to remind them to always be ‘light- houses in the darkness’ for society. The short period The poets did not of the 1920s and 1930s, when dramatic political changes were taking place in many parts of the world, forget to ask children: was a rare time when artists were truly devoted to ‘What are you going to be transmitting, in forms understandable to children, when you grow up?’

No. 4 – 2007 / 31 PICTUREBOOKS

The picturebooks of the popular items to be given as gifts.As it happened, 1920s and 1930s are the akahon of Japan were also distributed testimony that art was among the merchant class in the Edo period as special gifts for children at New Year. Here we capable of transmitting the see children’s books not as tools of education or legacy of the human spirit information transmission, but as presents – part of the lives of ordinary people and fashionable ideas about the nature of society and its ideals and products of the printing industry through which about their choices as individual human beings. parents passed on to children the art and lore of Meanwhile, the United States had become their culture. Among long-selling picturebooks home to massive numbers of immigrants from that continue to be published even today are Scandinavia, from Eastern and other parts of several that belong to the American Golden Age Europe, and from Latin America. As a result, of picturebooks in the 1920s, which can American picturebooks vividly record the compare with the Golden Age of picturebooks cultures of countries all over the world. Indeed, of England in the 19th century. the picturebooks of the 1920s and 1930s are testimony that art was capable of transmitting the Here we see children’s legacy of the human spirit, transcending the books not as tools of boundaries of ethnicity, culture, language and education or information religion.They reflected the trends in universalistic transmission, but as expression of art deco that exerted overwhelming presents – part of the lives influence in the world at that time. In the United of ordinary people States, children’s book departments were established in major publishers. Although it was What was happening in Japan in the years still difficult for talented women to advance in following World War II when Jella Lepman business or the professions, many did have a founded IBBY and the Andersen awards? The chance to play a major role in the publishing of country had just surrendered after a long and books for children. And especially in American destructive war and there was a whole generation publishing, this was an extraordinary time when of young people who had been educated for children’s book designers worked with authors a militarist cause but who now faced the need and illustrators to become involved in creating to build a new society on the principles of books as total works of art, taking into account democracy.They themselves had been educated paper quality,typefaces and illustrations. in their impressionable teenage years to believe This was a time when American children’s that they were the subjects of the emperor and books came into the commercial limelight as that it was their duty to serve the purposes of the imperial state. With their nation under Children’s book designers occupation by the victors in the war and worked with authors and abruptly expected to shift their thinking to the illustrators to become principles of democracy, one can only imagine involved in creating books the turmoil going on in their minds. Young editors seeking pictures, poetry and as total works of art stories for the new era were also in search of their

32 / BOOKBIRD PICTUREBOOKS

Classic Japanese picturebooks

AKABA Suekichi (1961) Kasa Jizo [Straw hats for the Jizo] SATO Churyo (1962) Ooki na kabu [The giant turnip] KITAGAWA Tamiji (1962) Usagi no mimi wa naze nagai? [Why are the rabbit’s ears long?] SEGAWA Yasuo (1963) Fushigi na takenoko [The mysterious bamboo shoot] WAKITA Kazu (1966) Odango pan [Dumpling balls] AKABA Suekichi (1967) Suho no shiroi uma [Suho and the white horse:A legend of Mongolia] TANIUCHI Kota (1970) Natsu no asa [A summer’s morning] IWASAKI Chihiro (1973) Ame no hi no orusuban [At home alone on a rainy day] own identity.Probably it was inevitable that they should turn to beliefs and arts, music and literature that are universal in nature. Their odyssey may have been rather like the search for the bluebird of happiness, but strangely enough, now 50 years later, there are few books that can compare with the works those who began writing for children produced at that time. All the titles listed in the panel can still be found on bookstore shelves. In 1984,Anno Mitsumasa, who had Young editors seeking begun producing picturebooks in 1968 with Fushigi pictures, poetry and stories na e [Strange pictures], received the Andersen Award. were also in search of their In 2004, Henteko henteko [Strange, strange], the latest own identity work of Ono Kaoru, who began publishing picture- books in 1958, was the focus of much attention.When we look at the works of these leading postwar picturebook writers, we can observe how freely they followed their creative instincts despite the difficult conditions after the war. Poor as the times might have been, the society that had finally attained freedom and turned toward peace must have been one in which they could readily write for children and for themselves.There must have been some- thing about that time that resembled the ferment of picturebook artists’ AKABA Suekichi Suho no shiroi uma (Suho and the white horse) 1967

No. 4 – 2007 / 33 PICTUREBOOKS

Today’s picturebooks can be mass produced for profit both as teaching aids and as commercial goods

activity in 1920s and 1930s America,with its influx of diverse cultures from overseas.Today’s picture- books with their often stereotyped forms of art can be mass produced for profit both as teaching aids and as commercial goods,but it has got harder to find the kind of passion capable of universal appeal that has been passed down from ages past. In her book, A Bridge of Children’s Books, Jella Lepman quoted the words of Ortega y Gasset: KITAGAWA Tamiji Why are the rabbit’s ears long? 1962 The child should be raised up in an atmosphere of bold, generous, ambitious, and enthusiastic politicians are no more than grown-up echoes emotions. Mythical figures such as Hercules and of the voices that have been long held in check Ulysses will for ever be perfect ones for the child, and that wish to flourish as the eternal child. because, like all mythology,they generate a spirit of inexhaustible enthusiasm … But maturity Since the time IBBY was founded, even as Jella and culture are not the creations of the adult and Lepman probably knew would happen, the wars, the sage, but of the child and the savage within the revolutions, the terror and strife have not us. Let us raise our children as children forgetting stopped. Human beings have not learned yet to as completely as we can that they will be adults coexist and live together peaceably despite all the some day.The best human being is never the horrors they have suffered. We do not know man who has been least a child … Maturity is when they will learn, but this much is certain: we not a dissolving away from childhood, but a must endure and continue to try to learn.Among bringing together of childhood … The songs of all the things that we must do to help children the poets, the words of the wise, the genius of endure and learn, IBBY is devoted to providing nourishment through books.What I wish to say is that today as never before we are aware of the vast and rich resources of art and human wisdom in every culture around the globe that can provide such nourishment. Perhaps this is a good occasion for us all to remember afresh Jella Lepman’s idea in founding IBBY that books can very concretely and enduringly contribute to our hopes for achieving peace in this world.

This article is based on a speech delivered at the TANIUCHI Kota A summer’s morning 1970 IBBY congress in Macau, China, in 2006

34 / BOOKBIRD The imaginative voyages of Polo the dog are related in these bandes dessi nées from France. Polo l tree ives in a house on a tiny island b ut this does not prevent him from setting off on a series of imaginative adventures in THE ADVENTURES OF POLO. T intr his epid character travels by spaceship, a boat made of ice and by ballo on. He befriends monkey sno s, aliens, a wman, even a cat; he c ooks sausages over lava RÉGIS FALLER and returns home to pe acefully read his book. In the second ins THE ADVENTURES OF P talment of his adventure OLO stea s, an alien and POLO: TH ls his new book so he s E RUNAWAY BOOK ets off in another series of imaginative adventures to ret Paris: Bayard Éd rieve it. Both joyful itions Jeunesse 2002, 20 stories are pre 05 sented through a b New Milford, CT: Roaring right wordless Brook Press 2006, 2007 sequential a 75pp I rt format, in a vivi SBN-13: 9781596431607 d, utterly unique style ISBN-10: 1596431601; sure to captivate ISBN-13: 9781596431 young and old. 898 ISBN-10: 159643189X Ernest Bond

In South Korea the lunar New Year is celebrated with rice cake soup, ceremonial bows to elders and the exchange of New Year’s greetings with family and friends. Children don HANBOK, traditional Korean clothes, made in bright colours especially for Solnal, the first day of the year. Young readers or listeners are likely to note with pleasure that the very young girl in the book dresses all by herself. We watch as she methodically and carefully proceeds with each step of the process. A spare text occurs only when necessary, sometimes sounding like the HYUN-JOO BAE comments a young lap reader might make: ‘Oomph! Whoops!’ ‘That’s pretty.’ Exquisite illustrations in vivid NEW CLOTHES FOR NEW YEAR’S DAY colours tell most of the story. These appear either on a white background or richly patterned backdrops that offer La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller 2007 details of house furnishings and wall coverings. Author and illustrator Bae studied at the Hankook Illustration (Originally published as THE NEW YEAR’S BEST CLOTHES, School in South Korea. Her work is inspired by translation published by arrangement with Sakyejul traditional Korean culture and folktales. A note at the Publishing, Gyeonggido, Korea) end of the book supplies adults with facts to share about 32pp ISBN 9781933605296 the holiday and an explanatory diagram that names each of the items of clothing shown throughout the book. (picturebook, 4–8) Glenna Sloan

No. 4 – 2007 / 35 l e a c n n o a i r t F a

, n t r l e u t a n r The IICP is a leading French organisation I r

dedicated to the study of children’s literature e t and childhood studies, with an international P

u perspective and a special interest in images

t for children s i e

t he Institut International Charles Perrault (IICP), named

l after the famous French fairy-tale author, was founded in s r T 1994, thanks to the work of Jean Perrot – one of the best- n known children’s literature scholars in France, now professor a

I emeritus of comparative literature – together with some of his

h colleagues at the University of Paris-Nord (Paris XIII) and the town council of Eaubonne. It is a national centre devoted to the

C study and promotion of children’s literature. It is located in the town of Eaubonne, near Paris (about twenty minutes away by train), in an 18th-century mansion designed by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, set in a small park in the town centre. Because it is so close to Paris by VIRGINIE DOUGLAS and yet is spacious and in pleasant suburban surroundings, the building is particularly suited to receiving groups of students.When large events are organised, the institute also has the use of another building, the orangery, which opens onto the same park and can accommodate bigger audiences. The aim of the institute is to encourage the development of inter- national children’s literature and reading, not by working directly

Virginie Douglas is vice-president with children but by supporting creation and mainly by providing of the IICP and a lecturer in English at the University of critical tools to all those who are individually or professionally Rouen, France involved in the field of children’s books, and to bring together the INSTITUT INTERNATIONAL CHARLES PERRAULT various facets and protagonists of children’s literature and culture.That is why the institute’s The institute has secured activities mainly centre on the two areas of the collaboration of a team training and research, both activities that of academics from various support its mission to convey critical perspec- French universities working tives to the public. in a wide range of disciplines The institute’s training courses, which have become more and more popular lately, are In the early days, the institute maintained particularly aimed at librarians, teachers and close links with the departments of French, those with a special interest in children’s literature. English, German, education, publishing, The teaching team is composed of about ten communications and multimedia of Paris-Nord instructors, among whom are authors, teachers, University. Since that time, the institute has lecturers, librarians and translators. Speakers secured the collaboration of a team of academics outside this permanent team are occasionally from various French universities working in a invited to deal with specific subjects.The institute wide range of disciplines connected with offers a yearly programme of training sessions, children’s literature and culture.This has made which aim to acquaint groups of a maximum it possible to regularly organise (or co-organise) of twenty students with a critical analysis of conferences. Indeed, the highlights in the children’s books. Some of the topics tackled are institute’s history have been several interna- the picturebook and visual literacy, non-fiction tional conferences or symposia. In 1998 the for children, death in children’s literature, sex in IICP hosted the American Children’s Literature novels and comics for the young, and adaptation Association conference on the theme ‘Children’s and translation in children’s books. Most of the Literature and the Fine Arts’. Another success time, the sessions are held at the institute in was the international symposium on ‘Children’s Eaubonne. But instructors can also meet the Publishing between Heritage and Mass Culture’, students in the establishments to which they held at the University of Paris VII (Jussieu) in belong, like universities, schools for trainee 2004 and co-organised by the IICP,the univer- teachers or libraries. sities of Paris XIII and Paris VII, the Association française de recherche sur les livres et objets The institute’s training culturels de l’enfance, the International courses are particularly aimed at librarians, teachers and those with a special interest in children’s literature

In addition, writing or illustrating workshops with artists and authors are occasionally organised. Last spring, for example, the picturebook artists Jean Claverie (France) and Anne Brouillard (Belgium) were invited to share their work and art with students at the institute.

No. 4 – 2007 / 37 INSTITUT INTERNATIONAL CHARLES PERRAULT

Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) and the Fédération internationale des langues et littératures modernes (FILLM).The institute has also developed a fruitful partnership with the Biblio- thèque nationale de France, by co-organising several conferences with this prestigious establishment, among which ‘Pinocchio entre texte et image’ (Pinocchio between text and image) in 2002 and ‘La traduction en littérature pour la jeunesse’ (The translation of children’s literature) in 2007. Another large part of the institute’s work has consisted in editing and publishing its conference proceedings, in collaboration with various publishers. These publications include, among many others, Visages et paysages du livre de jeunesse [Faces and land- scapes in children’s books], Ecritures féminines et littérature de jeunesse [Women’s writing and children’s literature], Musiques du texte et de l’image [Music in text and image], Tricentenaire Charles Perrault [Tricentennial of Charles Perrault], Humour et identité culturelle [Humour and cultural identity], Perspectives contemporaines du roman pour la jeunesse [Contemporary perspectives on novels for children] and a bilingual book about Tomi Ungerer. The institute is also to organise the 2008 FILLM congress on the topic of ‘Languages, literatures and media’ in collaboration with the Institut national de recherche pédagogique in Lyons, which will host the event. Simultaneous translation will be provided. On the occasion of this congress, Jean Perrot, together with the FILLM, will launch a project based on international cooperation, which will hopefully be subsidised by UNESCO. Its purpose is to lay the foundation stone of a work group that will pool the expertise and knowledge of members of the different associations present at the FILLM congress on the issues of how to reduce the cultural inequalities between north and south, how to support developing countries by helping them to make the most of their culture, paying particular attention to One of the things that set the current frailty of humanities and literature, and the institute apart is its how to improve skills in the use of new technologies constant endeavour to see or media and take advantage of the latter to fight French creation and illiteracy. criticism from a global As far as research is concerned, the institute also point of view wishes to further the recent development of scholarly interest in children’s literature studies by helping

38 / BOOKBIRD INSTITUT INTERNATIONAL CHARLES PERRAULT younger generations of academics to carry out Moreover, the institute has just initiated yearly projects linked with this field of study: every partnerships with illustrators: in 2007, the year two awards (Prix Critiques) are granted for associate artist is Nicolas Bianco-Levrin, who a book and an unpublished article offering a is the author and illustrator of about fifteen critical approach to children’s books.This prize picturebooks and who recently designed the is funded by the town of Eaubonne. institute’s logo. For three years now, the IICP has given a In children’s literature and new dimension to its promotion of images for culture, visual texts occupy children. Indeed in children’s literature and an ever greater place culture, visual texts occupy an ever greater place alongside verbal texts alongside verbal texts.The discrepancy between the actual creativity in the production of images One of the things that set the institute apart and the insufficient training to visual literacy from other French institutions specialising in provided to the public has led the team to children’s literature is its constant endeavour to initiate a summer university devoted to images see French creation and criticism in this field directed at children, which takes place at the from a global point of view. Consequently, it end of June or very beginning of July. The is heavily involved in international research. event differs from traditional conferences and The institute is in contact with the main inter- training sessions insofar as its purpose is to national associations with an interest in gather all kinds of professionals with a stake in children’s literature studies, such as the IBBY, the visual literacy, whether they are creators, IRSCL and FILLM.The institute has regularly publishers, scholars or other commentators.Two shown its interest in international production, years ago, the summer university was devoted to for example through organising seminars on ‘Images for children and their media’. Last year European languages and literatures (Ireland, we tackled the theme of frontiers and borders Portugal, Russia and Germany) and holding an in the picturebook. This year’s university was exhibition on the Japanese picturebook. It has entitled ‘Beyond frames’. Confronting domestic also carried out a European research project on and international creation is one of the picturebooks (with exchanges of books purposes of this summer university.And having between European classes), it has invited French or French-speaking artists like Claude foreign authors to stay at the institute for short Ponti, Anne Herbauts, Katy Couprie and periods, and it has organised classes in English Béatrice Poncelet and the guests of honour, the for foreign students visiting France. British Dave McKean and the American David The study of images for children has always Wiesner, in the same place was an interesting been one of the particular interests of the instit- experience.The star turn of the two-day event ute’s. The Prix Critique awarded for criticism is the ‘concert of drawing’, in which all the is paralleled by a Prix Graphique, an award artists present spontaneously draw on the same sponsored by ‘Le Grand Cercle’, a bookstore in piece of paper to the sound of live music. the nearby town of Eragny-sur-Oise, and Today, in addition to the current president, granted to a young artist for an outstanding Jean-Marc Merriaux, the honorary president, illustration to match a theme or text defined Jean Perrot, four vice-presidents, a secretary and each year by a jury of creators and specialists. a treasurer, there are three permanent employees,

No. 4 – 2007 / 39 INSTITUT INTERNATIONAL CHARLES PERRAULT

including the director, Sophie Van der Linden, and many volunteers. As in the case of all non-profit-making organisations, the IICP relies largely on subsidies, which make up about half of its budget. Its local sponsors in particular, mainly the town of Eaubonne and the depart- ment of Val d’Oise, are a great help. But the institute functions above all thanks to the enthusiasm and commitment of its team.

Contact details

Institut International Charles Perrault Hôtel de Mézières BP 61 14, avenue de l’Europe 95604 EAUBONNE CEDEX France

tel: +33 (0)1 34 16 36 88 email: [email protected]

New Zealander Mahy, 2006 winner of IBBY’s Hans Christian Andersen author award and major awards worldwide, once more demonstrates her astonishing way with words. Everything looks bleak when Dad loses the keys to the not-up-to-snuff car. Two-year-old Mary offers the sage advice to do what she always does when things are lost – look down the back of the chair. Unexpected mayhem ensues. An amazing array of increasingly unbelievable items emerges, Margaret Mahy and Polly Dunbar including a spider seven inches long, one of the sure map, even a dragon twins, a pirate with a trea ck of the Chair trying to take a nap. Each line of the rollicking Down the Ba rhymed text is effectively punctuated with the ndon: Frances Lincoln 2006 ing refrain, ‘down the back of the chair’. In a Lo rous Y: Clarion Books 2006 y’s fortune is saved when N satisfying ending, the famil ISBN-13: 9780618693955; Uncle Billy’s long-lost will appears from down the ISBN-10: 0618693955 back of the chair. Detailed illustrations fairly burst (picturebook, 4–8) off the pages as the characters and objects fly about in a rousing spirit suited to the exuberant text. This is a story that begs to be chanted. Micki Nevett

40 / BOOKBIRD C 5 T 0

h Y h e a e r i s l

o d C f

t h r h e e

D a n J L n P ’

s – g

G L i e r n m

The national German award for literature i t a

for children and young people has a long g n e

and venerable history, and provides an Y r o excellent model for organisations considering F u a a setting up their own award. Hannelore t h t

Daubert here describes the award’s structure c L u i e

and traces how its history has reflected the t e r r

history of children’s literature itself a e o t he Deutsche Jugendliteraturpreis (DJLP) – German Youth u r f Literature Prize – the only state prize for literature in e

Germany,was awarded in October 2006 for the 50th time. P

T r The sponsor of the award is the federal government Ministry of the i z

Family,Senior Citizens,Women and Youth.This prize is intended to e support the development of children’s literature, to keep public interest in it alive and to encourage public discussion of it. The recognition of excellent work is meant to attract children and by HANNELORE DAUBERT young people to engage with literature.As the only state prize of its kind, the annual DJLP is the most important accolade for children’s (translated by Siobhán Parkinson) literature in Germany. The prize, for which books in translation are eligible as well as books by German authors and illustrators – for this is an interna- tional award – is organised by the national organisation for children’s literature, the Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur, the German section of IBBY.Since 2003, there have been two mutually independent juries.An autonomous youth jury, drawn from reading Hannelore Daubert is a lecturer in children´s literature clubs from all over Germany,awards its own youth jury prize.A jury at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main and former president of IBBY Germany THE CHAGING FACE OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

of critics, consisting of nine adult experts in children’s literature, awards the DJLP in four categories: picturebooks, children’s books, books for young people and non-fiction. In March each year, in association with the Leipzig Book Fair, the eagerly awaited announce- ment of the shortlist is made. There are always six nominations in each of the four categories and six also for the youth jury award. Considering that about 4500 children’s books are published every year in Germany, it is considered an enormous achievement to reach the shortlist. Six months later, in October, after more eager anticipation, the final awards are announced by the minister, at a festive Oscar-style event attended by over a thousand guests at the Frankfurt Book Fair.There is a prize of 8000 euro in each category – though in some cases this may have to be shared by an author and an illustrator and/or translator. Additionally, a special 10,000 euro prize is given every year for a body of work by, in rotating years, a German author, illustrator or translator. In addition, each prizewinner receives a statuette of Michael Ende’s character, Momo. The 50-year history of this award is also the history of the development of children’s literature in Germany.The decisions of the jury over those 50 years give an insight into the culture of the time and the prevailing concepts of culture and society.These jury decisions document changes in cultural history and reflect altered concepts of childhood as well as modifications in emphasis within the criticism of children’s literature. Notions of what constitutes a ‘good’ book for young An autonomous youth readers, worthy of winning an award, have changed jury, drawn from reading radically over the last 50 years: at first there was a clubs from all over predominantly pedagogical focus; then, after 1968 Germany, awards its own came a tendency to view children’s books ideologically youth jury prize or from a socially critical standpoint; and in the 1980s the emphasis became more literary/aesthetic, a shift that is expressed in the change in the name of the award from the German Youth Book Prize to the German Youth Literature Prize. Literature for young readers is now measured against the same literary criteria as literature in general. As well as reflecting cultural changes, the DJLP has itself also had to respond all the time to cultural, political, social and, of course, aesthetic changes – and it has done so successfully.At the age These jury decisions of 50, the prize has remained astonishingly youthful document changes in and flexible. Its statement of aims and, consequently, cultural history and reflect its governing principles have had to be newly articu- altered concepts of childhood lated on several occasions. It has taken on board the role of the young addressees of children’s literature,

42 / BOOKBIRD THE CHAGING FACE OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Literature for young readers Recent prizewinners is now measured against Winners of the special prize for authors the same literary criteria Benno Pludra (2004) as literature in general Peter Härtling (2001) Peter Hacks (1998) most recently with the establishment of the Paul Maar (1996) youth jury.The rapidly changing conditions of childhood in the media society, together with Winners of the special prize for illustrators the aesthetic changes in children’s literature Rotraud Susanne Berner (2006) itself, demand a constant revision of the aims Wolf Erlbruch (2003) Nikolaus Heidelbach (2000) and function of the prize. Modern children’s Binette Schroeder (1997) literature has become more complex and Klaus Ensikat (1995) multilayered. It is characterised by a breaking down of the boundaries between age groups Winners of the special prize for translation and within literary categories. Assumptions Harry Rowohlt (2005) about a correspondence between themes, Cornelia Krutz-Arnold (2002) narrative structures, literary genres and reading Birgitta Kicherer (1999) age are becoming less and less tenable. Mirjam Pressler (1994) Picturebooks are being read by adult collectors, young adult books are increasingly read by children, and young people themselves turn – the independent youth jury was an attempt to if they read at all – to adult literature. The resolve the tension between the promotion of putative addressees of children’s literature and literature and the promotion of reading and at its actual readers are not – and for some time the same time to set up a model of reading have not been – always identical. promotion that draws on the power of word- Until now,the DJLP has had a dual aim: on the of-mouth recommendations between children one hand, to honour literary/artistic excellence, of similar ages. and on the other, to encourage and promote reading. In the best-case scenario these two There is constant principles can be brought together. But the tension between best-case scenario does not always exist; there promoting literature is constant tension between promoting litera- and promoting reading ture and promoting reading, and the prize can be caught in the opposition between compet- In the currently very varied prize landscape ing expectations. This in turn stimulates in Germany, there are three features that controversial discussion of the prize-winning distinguish the DJLP: its internationality, its books and about children’s literature in diversity and its credibility. general.Thus a further intention of the prize’s The DJLP has always been an international sponsors is fulfilled: to keep public interest in rather than a national prize. German children’s children’s literature alive and to make it the literature has always been inspired and subject of public debate. The establishment of enriched by the availability of so many books

No. 4 – 2007 / 43 THE CHAGING FACE OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

In the 50 years of the award, about 2500 titles, representing the diversity and internationality of the prize, have won awards or been shortlisted.The full list is available as a database on www.jugendliteratur.org.

Recent prizewinners

Youth jury prize 2006: Kevin Brooks Lucas (translated from English) dtv 2005: Graham Gardner Im Schatten der Wächter (translated from English Inventing Elliot) Freies Geistesleben 2004: Lian Hearn Das Schwert in der Stille (translated from English Across the Nightingale Floor) Carlsen

Picturebook prize 2006: Peter Schössow Gehört das so? Carl Hanser 2005: Chen Jianghon Han Gan und das Wunderpferd (translated from French) Moritz 2004: Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks (illus) Fuchs (translated from English Fox) Carlsen

Children’s book prize 2006:Valérie Dayre Lilis Leben eben (translated from French) Carlsen 2005:Victor Caspak and Yves Lanois (pseudonym) Die Kurzhosengang Carlsen 2004: Maritgen Matter (text) and Anke Faust (illus) Ein Schaf fürs Leben (translated from Dutch) Oetinger

Young adult book prize 2006: Dolf Verroen Wie schön weiß ich bin (translated from Dutch) Peter Hammer 2005: Dorota Maslowska Schneeweiß und Russenrot (translated from Polish) Taschenbuch 2004:Tamara Bach Marsmädchen Oetinger Kiepenheuer & Witsch

Non-fiction prize 2006:Anja Tuckermann Denk nicht, wir bleiben hier! Die Lebensgeschichte des Sinto Hugo Höllenreiter Carl Hanser 2005:Anne Möller Nester bauen, Höhlen knabbern.Wie Insekten für ihre Kinder sorgen Atlantis 2004:Alois Prinz Lieber wütend als traurig. Die Lebensgeschichte der Ulrike Marie Meinhof Beltz & Gelberg

in translation. And for this reason, translations are valued by the DJLP as linguo-artistic accomplishments in their own right. Every year, the thematic, narrative and artistic diversity of the titles on the shortlist reflect the immense richness in innovative quality that there is in Germany. The age span and the variety of audiences addressed by this literature is at least as wide as that addressed by other literary genres.There are realistic novels for children and young people, which present the actual life experiences of young people growing up today, as well as books which, in poetic and fantastic Translations are valued by ways, treat of timeless, more psychological truths. the DJLP as linguo-artistic There are books that juggle masterfully with comedy, accomplishments in others that question accepted beliefs, that broaden their own right perspectives and become a springboard for young readers into their own creativity. Still others bring us

44 / BOOKBIRD THE CHAGING FACE OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE information in enter- taining and accessible ways from the most diverse areas of knowl- edge. Modern forms of narrative, as exemplified in modern children’s books, are a testament to the fact that children’s books can no longer be differentiated from books for adults on grounds of literary quality. The nominated books show that the literary and artistic quality of books for young readers does not need to be in conflict with their entertainment value, but rather these things can complement each other. Award jury The credibility of this prize is evident in the way the awards are made and is a function of the work of the jury.Over the space of a year, a jury of disinterested critics – independent of the market and the organisation – examine several hundred new books. They participate in intense discussions that take place over several days and nights in an effort to be fair to every author and every title. Added to this are extraordinary levels of commitment to aesthetic/artistic criteria, and all this without ever losing sight of the young reader. And in a parallel process, the youth jury also examines the books produced in the same year, and, guided only by their own reading interests and preferences, produces its own shortlist of the youth jury prize. For more than 50 years the decisions of the jury have helped to improve the quality of children’s literature in Germany and to maintain that level of quality. Children’s literature in Germany would probably not have achieved the level of literary/aesthetic and artistic quality that distinguishes it today if the DJLP did not exist. Regular honouring of excellent books has not only validated children’s literature but also supported its development and even helped to form it. Authors, illus- trators and their publishers are encouraged to dare to be innovative, and to produce titles that go beyond the mainstream in originality and imagination.The recognition of literary debuts can help to encourage

No. 4 – 2007 / 45 THE CHAGING FACE OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Momo trifft Marsmädchen

Thirty years after Momo won the award, the unknown Tamara Bach’s innovative literary debut Marsmädchen won the prize, and hopefully will go on to achieve similar success. Momo trifft Marsmädchen – 50 Jahre Deutscher Jugendliteratur- preis [Momo meets Marsmädchen – 50 years of the DJLP] is the title of the Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur’s jubilee publi- cation, edited by Hannelore Daubert and Julia Lentge. Nominated authors, publishers, journalists, academics and other literary and cultural experts discuss the significance of the award and the diversity of the winning titles from different perspectives. The cover illustration is by the HCA award- winning illustrator Wolf Erlbruch.

and sustain young writers and illustrators who are at the beginning of their career. While always supporting internationality in children’s literature within Germany, the DJLP has at the same time helped to ensure that excellent German-language literature is itself translated into many other languages. The role of the shortlist and awards in the selling of foreign rights is well recognised by publishers.The annual shortlist is regarded by young readers and mediators of literature for young people as a reliable and credible benchmark that is independent of market interests. It is also well regarded abroad and is widely referred to by Goethe-Institut libraries and international German schools in the building of their collections. It is the goal of all who care as much about quality Authors, illustrators and children’s literature as about promoting reading and their publishers are educating the rising generation to make every effort encouraged to dare to make the DJLP books widely accessible to young to be innovative readers.Young readers have the right to great literature and the opportunity to develop their literary experience. The shortlist is widely used around the country as the basis for reading projects and promotions, and at a national level, the Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur has, in partnership with various collaborators, brought many projects and promotions to fruition, again based on the shortlist. The campaign ‘Wer liest, gewinnt’ (Readers are Winners), based on the children’s book category shortlist, which was launched in 2004 under the auspices of the minister, has had widespread national penetration – it has involved thousands of schoolchildren in over 50 cities and towns.

46 / BOOKBIRD THE CHAGING FACE OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

One aim of this campaign is to bring school and leisure reading together and to encourage co-operation between schools and libraries. This successful campaign is now in its third year. The history of the prize has shown that many of the winning titles go on to become international bestsellers and modern classics. It is more than 30 years since Michael Ende’s fantasy Momo won the award in 1974. That novel went on to become internationally successful, and today’s award winners receive a statue of Momo as part of their prize. Many other award-winning and shortlisted books have achieved similar status, including Ende’s Jim Knopf und Lukas, der Lokomotivführer, Erik Carle’s Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt (The Very Hungry Caterpillar), Janosch’s Oh, wie schön ist Panama, Scott O’Dell’s Die Insel der blauen Delphine (Island of Blue Dolphins), Leo Lionni’s Swimmy, Ali Mitgutsch’s Rundherum in einer Stadt, Otfried Preußler’s Krabat, Christine Nöstlinger’s Wir pfeifen auf den Gurkenkönig, Judith Kerr’s Als Hitler das rosa Kaninchen stahl (When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit), Peter Härtling’s Oma. Some of the prize books have become classroom classics and part of the secret canon of children’s literature.

Young fans of puzzles will delight in this unique picturebook. Colourful stylised animals appear on each page and the audience is asked to look closely and discover the answers to such questions as Who’s hiding? Who’s crying? Who’s angry? Who’s backwards? The answers are not always obvious in this pleasurable pre-reading exercise that helps very young children to focus on the pictures and to register minute details, similarities and SATURO ONISHI differences. The names of the animals are provided and at the back there is an answer key where, with WHO’S HIDING? an experienced reader’s help, children can check La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller 2007 their accuracy in answering the questions. The lished in Japan by Poplar Publishing Co 1993) appealing animals, vividly and fancifully coloured, (First pub are arranged at attention in straight lines on white 32pp ISBN 9781933605241 or brightly coloured backgrounds. They do and they (picturebook, 4–6) don’t look like real animals, which adds to the fun of identifying them. Glenna Sloan

No. 4 – 2007 / 47 BOOKBIRD

Bookbird Seeks New Editor

Bookbird needs a new editor (or team of editors) beginning with the first issue of 2009.The new editor(s) should be in place by mid-2008.

Our new Bookbird editor(s) will need to have most or all of the following qualifications: • A postgraduate degree in a subject such as English, languages, literature, children’s literature, education, childhood studies, librarianship • Experience in editing and copyediting books, textbooks, conference proceedings or a journal • Evidence of a professional or clearly defined personal interest in children’s literature • A superb command of the English language and a general ability to work with foreign languages and writers whose first language is not English, with reading/writing knowledge of a language other than English highly recommended • A sympathetic ability to work with and encourage authors from a wide range of cultures and with mixed educational backgrounds • Commitment to the ideals of IBBY and ability to work closely with the IBBY Executive Committee

The editor’s duties include: • Planning the content of each issue of Bookbird and commissioning suitable articles • Liaising with the Bookbird editorial panel and overseeing the refereeing process for each article • Working with authors to improve their texts • Editing and overseeing the copyediting and proofreading of articles and dealing with illustrations and permissions • Liaising with the designer and printer and generally project-managing each issue of the journal so that it appears on time each quarter • Working closely with and advising the board of Bookbird Inc on journal-related matters such as printing, advertising, promotion, distribution

The editor is required to attend IBBY Executive Committee meetings twice yearly in various venues around the world, in March or April at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, and in September or October in even years at the IBBY Congress (Denmark 2008; Spain 2010) and at another location in uneven years.There is a small budget to cover hotel and travel expenses to these meetings.

This is an executive position, and, within some clearly defined constraints, the editor(s) has (have) a high degree of autonomy to shape and drive the magazine. This is a golden opportunity for an ambitious and creative person with a strong interest in international children’s literature to develop his/her career and acquire invaluable experience. It is not, however, a full-time job, remuneration is modest and the editor will need to provide his/her own back-up by way of office facilities and sec- retarial help.The editor works from his/her own home or office, and may be based in any country.

Expressions of interest, including a CV (resumé) and a statement about the applicant’s vision for Bookbird, are invited immediately from suitably qualified persons, by email in the first instance to Alida Cutts, secretary of Bookbird Inc: [email protected]

48 / 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. 4 – 2007 / 49 s k o o B

n o

s k o o B

A short appreciation of Barbara Scharioth, retiring director of IYL; papers from a conference in Belgium on religion and children’s edited and compiled by books and one from a conference in the UK on CHRISTIANE RAABE children’s literature in translation; an analysis (translations by Nikola von Merveldt) in German of fairy tales as girls’ literature; essays on lesser-known British authors; a book in English about literature in other European languages; an illustrated celebration of 40 years of the Bologna Book Fair awards; and from the USA, an account of how ‘feeling like Christiane Raabe is director of the Internationale Jugendbibliothek (International Youth Library) in Munich a kid’ appears in children’s literature and a collection of essays on Peter Pan BOOKS ON BOOKS

The Lady of the Castle Passes on the Keys Dr Barbara Scharioth takes leave of the International Youth Library

by Renate Raecke translated by Nikola von Merveldt

t is telling that Barbara Scharioth should take leave and took over responsibility for the library’s cultural of her office as director of the International Youth management, including the promotion of reading and ILibrary (IYL) in Munich with a vision. In an literature. For the first time since its foundation, the exhibition that ran until late March 2007 to mark her IYL was not directed by a librarian, so Dr Andreas departure from the book castle, artists from around Bode, academic librarian, was asked to join Scharioth at the world were invited to share their vision of an the head of the institution. When the International ‘imaginary library’consisting of books that ‘do not (yet) Youth Library became a foundation in 1996, Scharioth exist’. Instead of reviewing past achievements, Barbara took over the directorship on her own. preferred to take a creative look into the future. It is impossible here to pay tribute to all the Barbara Scharioth’s and my professional paths have library’s achievements during the past fifteen years crossed repeatedly since 1985. It all started when we under Scharioth’s leadership. Her desire to share the were both members of the Executive Committee of unique international collection with the larger Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur (AKJ), the German public led to the creation of gallery spaces that IBBY section. During those six years, for three of featured many exhibitions. In conjunction with which I acted as her deputy, I came to know and these shows, which were an important source of appreciate her relentless energy, her courage, her thematic and artistic stimuli, a series of programmes powerful determination (at times against all odds), and activities was developed for children – especially but most of all her visionary drive. We both also for school groups – and for interested visitors. served on the IBBY Executive Committee, though When Michael Ende, the famous author of The not at the same time. I was impressed by her resolve Neverending Story, bequeathed his literary estate to to bring about change and to make things happen. the IYL in 1997, the idea of ‘reading museums’ was Close contact and collaboration between the AKJ hatched and the project was passionately pursued by and the IYL seemed natural not just because both Scharioth. Two years later, an Erich Kästner Room institutions were located in Munich but also because was inaugurated, followed in 2001 by the James they both received funds from the German Federal Krüss Tower. In 2005, the attic of the research library Ministry for Families, Senior Citizens, Women and was renovated to house the Binette-Schroeder Youth,which desired such co-operation. In long talks Cabinet and the Heinrich Maria Denneborg between the ministry and Christa Spangenberg, Showcases, which present many a jewel of children’s fondly remembered patron of the IYL, a new literature to charm visitors. concept was elaborated for the direction of the IYL, The IYL also organised workshops for authors and which had been founded by Jella Lepman in 1949. illustrators that brought together creators and In 1992, after her term as president of the AKJ, promoters of children’s literature to explore specific Scharioth was nominated executive director of the IYL themes such as Remembered Childhood and Illustrating

No. 4 – 2007 / 51 BOOKS ON BOOKS

Hans Christian Andersen. Scharioth considered these well-attended events as part of the library’s reading and literature promotion programmes. Ideas and visions are all very well. But they do not materialise by themselves or translate into action on their own.Thanks to the enduring support of Christa Spangenberg, president of the foundation’s board of directors for many years, however, funds could always be raised to finance ambitious projects. Scharioth proved to be just as resolute and pragmatic in this respect as in all things artistic. Her time as the castle’s warden has come to an end. She convincingly represented the IYL on both the national and international level. She may have set the course for some of this year’s events, but she passed on the castle’s keys to her successor, Dr Christiane Raabe. She left the castle in good order and built a firm foundation for others to build on.

BELGIUM

JAN DE MAEYER (ET AL.) (EDS) Religion, Children’s Literature and Modernity in Western Europe: 1750–2000 (Series: KADOC studies on religion, culture and society; 3) Leuven: Leuven Univ. Press 2005 535pp ISBN 9058674975 a45.00

This volume contains the the contributions on Switzerland, Great Britain proceedings of the confer- and Germany (in section 2, however). Section ence of the same title, 2, ‘Genres, literary theory, debates and systems which took place in of inspection’, offers further essays on modern- Leuven (Belgium) in May isation and on various genres of religious 2002. The conference was literature and gives a detailed, critical survey of organised by KADOC, an French Bible illustrations for children from interfaculty centre of the 1670 until 2001. Section 3, ‘Publishing and University of Leuven that distribution’, provides information on publishing collects documentation on the interaction of houses and a critical analysis of the enduring religion, culture and society from the mid-18th protestant magazine The Girl’s Own Paper century. Accordingly, the contributions cover a (1880-1956). broad range of themes, which were regrouped Among the 28 contributors from ten Euro- into three sections. pean countries are well-known names such as Section 1, ‘Religion and children’s literature – Hans-Heino Ewers, Peter Hunt, Verena the process of modernisation’, presents essays on Rutschmann and Ernst Seibert. Given that a national traditions of religious literature for majority of the contributions are from Leuven children from 1780 until about 2000. While the University, however, the dominant focus on ones about Flanders,Austria, Ireland, France, Italy Catholic children’s literature should come as no and Spain concentrate on the Catholic side, the surprise. Protestant and Jewish sides are touched upon in Andreas Bode

52 / BOOKBIRD BOOKS ON BOOKS

GERMANY the romantic infatuation for old lore and medieval myths (Ludwig Tieck,ETA Hoffmann, MOON SUN CHOI Albert Ludwig Grimm, Ernst Moritz Arndt, Märchen als Mädchenliteratur. Mädchen- Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm) and Biedermeier bilder in literarischen Märchen des 18. und tales that seek idyllic refuge but are on the frühen 19. Jahrhunderts verge of a period of new revolutionary ideals [Fairy tales as literature for girls. Images of girl- (Amalia Schoppe, Hermann Kletke, Sophie hood in literary fairy tales of the 18th and 19th Baudissin and Robert Reinick). centuries] Christa Stegemann (Series: Kinder- und Jugendkultur, -literatur und -medien; 47) Frankfurt am Main [et al]: Lang 2007 272pp ISBN 3631560214 a45.50 ITALY

The dissertation analyses VALERIA PATREGNANI AND ELENA images of girlhood in literary MASSI (EDS) fairy tales of the 18th and Bologna Ragazzi Award. Quarant’anni di early 19th centuries and looks premi della Fiera del Libro per Ragazzi in at the impact of the social Biblioteca Sala Borsa = Forty Years of changes brought about by the Prize-winning Books from the Bologna French Revolution on the Children’s Book Fair in the Sala Borsa literary representation of Library female adolescence. Do these literary images of Bologna: CLUEB 2007 199pp girlhood conform to contemporary pedagogic ISBN 9788849128642 a34.00 models or do they offer literary counter-models? The author interprets courtly and bourgeois The art awards of the female figures as reflections of shifting social struc- Bologna Children’s tures and changing value systems. Literary fairy Book Fair can look back tales from different periods reveal that the images on a long tradition. of girl- and womanhood are firmly grounded in Despite changing names their respective historical contexts. They also – Balanzone d’oro and reflect the gradual transformation of female behav- Torchio d’oro (1964– ioural codes for girls within their families and for 1965), Premio Grafico women within marriage and society at large. and Premio Critici in The broad scope of the study is of special Erba (1966–1994), Bologna Ragazzi Award (since merit. Instead of focusing merely on romantic 1995) – changing categories, and changing folktales in the Grimm tradition, the author also selection criteria, they have gradually established includes texts otherwise neglected by literary themselves as one of the most important and scholarship: fairy tales from the Enlightenment renowned international prizes for children’s and in the spirit of bourgeois emancipation young adult literature. This attractive bilingual (Christoph Martin Wieland, Charles Perrault, catalogue was published to accompany the Johann Karl August Musäus); tales indulging in exhibition at this year’s book fair prepared by

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the Bologna children’s library, which has been reveals the enormous artistic variety of more collecting the award-winning books since 1964. than 40 years of children’s books illustration. Along with several contributions on the The many pictures are an invitation to review historical background of the award, the cata- long-term developments and short-lived trends, logue gives a complete list of all award-winning longsellers and flashes in the pan, books that titles with full bibliographical references, repro- have become classics and others that have ductions of cover illustrations and (starting with (sometimes rightly so) sunk into oblivion. In 1995) the statements of the international juries. short, this is a long-due publication useful for This engaging and sometimes surprising reference and delightful for browsing. overview documents many highlights and Jochen Weber

UNITED KINGDOM

PAT PINSENT (ED) No Child Is an Island.The Case for Children’s Literature in Translation; papers from the NCRCL/IBBY conference held at Roehampton University,London on 12 November 2005 (Series: NCRCL papers; 12) Lichfield, Staffordshire: Pied Piper Publ. 2006 ISBN 0954638433 £15.00

This study on the translation of children’s literature gathers the complete texts of most of the contributions from the IBBY/NCRCL conference held at Roehampton University in November 2005. Divided into four sections, the book offers insights into a wide variety of aspects without attempting to answer the difficult question of why translations from English into other languages by far outnumber the books translated into English. While in the first section authors, publishers and translators reflect on the current situation of translations in children’s literature, the essays in the second section focus on the academic issue of foreignness versus familiarity in translations. Section 3 offers a number of texts on the relationship between translation and illustration and on the specific problems (or opportunities) of translating picturebooks.The three texts in the final section deal with ‘the interplay between cultures’ in translated texts. As the various contributions were written by people from different backgrounds (ranging from university teachers, authors and illustrators to translators, publishers, etc.), and in different formats (longer presentations as well as workshop talks), they naturally differ in length and address a varied readership.This makes for a book that is an interesting contribution to the study of translation for both academics and the general reading public. Claudia Söffner

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UNITED KINGDOM USA

PAT PINSENT (ED) SANDRA L BECKETT AND MARIA Out of the Attic. Some Neglected Children’s NIKOLAJEVA (ED) Authors of the Twentieth Century Beyond Babar.The European Tradition in (Series: Neglected Children’s Authors) Children’s Literature Lichfield, Staffordshire: Pied Piper Publ. 2006 256pp Lanham, MD [et al.]: Children’s Literature Association and ISBN 9780954638474 £18.00 Scarecrow Press 2006 xiv+322pp ISBN 9780810854154

‘Sometimes looking at the Excellence, importance, work of less famous writers distinctiveness and popu- can reveal more about a period larity were the selection than better-known novels’, criteria of the European claims the editor of this books for children and volume, Pat Pinsent.What the young adults featured in 20th-century authors whose this collection of essays. works are analysed in this Because of linguistic barr- book have in common is that their names have iers, lack of translations and been either completely ignored or given only difficulty of access, titles in languages other than very limited space in standard reference works English remain largely ignored by Anglo-Amer- on children’s literature. The types of stories that ican scholars.To counter this trend, this volume these authors – Muriel Wace, Kitty Barne, Mary presents eleven famous non-English novels and Treadgold, DK Broster, Cynthia Harnett, Margot illustrates the recent development of European Pardoe, Richard Armstrong, Frederick Grice, children’s literature with works by Janusz Cecily Hallack, Meriol Trevor, Antonia Forest Korczak, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Astrid and Vivien Alcock – produced range from pony Lindgren, Tove Jansson, Gianni Rodari, Cecil books and school stories to historical novels, Bødker, Michel Tournier, Christine Nöstlinger, adventure tales, and religious stories. Michael Ende, Peter Pohl and Jostein Gaarder. Pat Pinsent has gathered a number of essays The individual contributions introduce the written mainly by former MA students of chil- oeuvre of one author and analyse in which dren’s literature to draw attention to the fact respects it set new standards and distinguished that these authors’ writings are, nevertheless, of itself from mainstream children’s literature high quality,and to analyse the question of why production. Providing valuable insights into land- their books have neither been hailed with due mark works of European children’s literature, this praise by their contemporaries nor been regu- volume will prove a valuable source for scholars, larly reprinted for modern readers. Even if teachers,and librarians.The concluding reflections, modern children might not be particularly ‘What Do We Translate When We Translate interested in these books (as the editor herself Children’s Literature’, on the selection criteria for admits), this study will direct the attention of children’s books to be translated and on the limits academics and children’s literature professionals of literary translation may encourage the transla- towards these undeservedly neglected authors. tion of outstanding titles – not only into English. Claudia Söffner Elena Kilian

No. 4 – 2007 / 55 BOOKS ON BOOKS

USA USA

JERRY GRISWOLD DONNA R.WHITE AND C ANITA RARR (ED) Feeling Like a Kid. Childhood and J M Barrie’s Peter Pan in and out of Time. Children’s Literature A Children’s Classic at 100 Baltimore:The Johns Hopkins University Press 2006 (Series: Children’s Literature Association centen- 148pp ISBN 0801885175 US $19.95 nial studies; 4) Lanham, MD [et al.]: Scarecrow Press 2006 xxvi+339pp Kids love to build caves ISBN 9780810854284 US $39.95 under tables and to hide in corners. They can This collection of essays featur- spend hours playing with ing contributions by young, little toy knights, talking mostly American scholars to their dolls or stuffed marks the centenary of the first animals, or engaging in publication of the play Peter conversation with stones Pan (1904). The contributions and trees.This typically childlike behaviour has are divided into four sections inspired many authors of children’s literature and range from studies of the and has taken shape in recurring literary topoi. play’s intertextual relationship This beautifully illustrated monograph focuses with other fantasy works of children’s literature to on five motifs that the author considers to be explorations of Walt Disney’s and Steven Spielberg’s particularly appealing to children: snugness, film adaptations.The first section,‘In his own time’, scariness, smallness, lightness and aliveness. situates the play within Barrie’s time and includes Griswold analyses children’s book classics essays such as ‘Child-Hating: Peter Pan in the ranging from Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in Context of Victorian Hatred’ (Karen Coats),‘Babes the Willows and JM Barrie’s Peter Pan to Mary in Boy-Land: JM Barrie and the Edwardian Girl’ Norton’s The Borrowers, Maurice Sendak’s (Christine Roth), or ‘Peter Pan’s Place in Pirate Where the Wild Things Are and JK Rowling’s History and Lore’ (Jill P May).The contribution by Harry Potter to demonstrate the scope of liter- Clay Kinchen Smith in the shorter second section, ary adaptations and variations of these topoi. ‘In and Out of Time – Peter Pan in America’, He also seeks to explain children’s fascination convincingly argues that Barrie aimed to under- for these motifs. Based on findings of develop- mine the racist tendencies of his time while mental psychology, Griswold argues that all Disney’s adaptation brought them back in full force. those snug, small and cosy literary places where The third section, ‘Timelessness and Timeliness of animals and objects talk and humans fly satisfy Peter Pan’, draws parallels to the present and looks the human craving for a sense of security and at Peter Pan in the digital world of video games and belonging and confirm the childish, animist his importance for authors such as Philip Pullman world view.Children’s literature thus proves to and JK Rowling. Section 4, ‘Women’s Time’, be the ideal object for studying children’s follows scholarly trends with titles such as ‘Female worldview as well as the best place for children Sexuality and Power in JM Barrie’s Peter Pan’ to learn to grasp the world. (M Joy Morse). Christiane Raabe Andreas Bode

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I B B Y The list of authors and illustrators nominated by IBBY national sections for the 2008 Hans Christian Andersen Awards; projects nominated for the IBBY-Asahi Awards for reading projects; an intriguing account of motorbike libraries in Indonesia; and an obit on the Norwegian writer and friend of IBBY, Jo Tenfjord

Nominations for the Hans Christian Andersen Awards 2008

The Hans Christian Andersen (HCA) Awards are presented every two years by IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) to an author and an illustrator whose complete works have made an important and lasting contribution to children’s literature. compiled and edited by IBBY national sections from 35 countries have made their selec- ELIZABETH PAGE tions, submitting the following 30 authors and 30 illustrators as candidates for the 2008 Hans Christian Andersen Awards:

• Argentina: Author: Beatriz María Ana Ferro; Illustrator: Isol Misenta • Australia: Author: Jackie French; Illustrator: Shaun Tan • Austria: Author:Lene Mayer-Skumanz; Illustrator: Linda Wolfsgruber

• Belgium: Author:Anne Provoost; Illustrator: Kitty Crowther Elizabeth Page is IBBY’s member services, communications • Brazil: Author: Bartolomeu Campos de Queirós; Illustrator: Rui and new projects director de Oliveira FOCUS IBBY

• Canada: Author: Brian Doyle; Illustrator: Pierre Pratt • China: Author: Qin Wenjun • Croatia: Illustrator: Svjetlan Junakovic´ • Cyprus: Author: Kika Pulcheriou • Czech Republic: Author: Iva Procházková; Illustrator:Adolf Born • Denmark: Author: Bjarne Reuter; Illustrator: Lilian Brøgger • Egypt: Author: Fatima El Maadoul • Finland: Author: Irmelin Sandman Lilius; Illustrator:Virpi Talvitie • France: Author: Marie Desplechin; Illustrator: Claude Ponti • Germany: Author: Peter Härtling; Illustrator: Jutta Bauer • Greece: Author:Voula Mastori; Illustrator:Vassilis Papatsarouchas • Iceland: Author: Gudrún Helgadóttir • Ireland: Author: Kate Thompson; Illustrator: Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick • Italy: Author: Mino Milani; Illustrator: Roberto Innocenti • Japan: Author: Shuntaro Tanikawa; Illustrator:Akiko Hayashi • Lithuania: Illustrator: Kestutis Kasparavicˇius • Mexico: Illustrator: Mauricio Gómez Morín • Netherlands: Author: Guus Kuijer; Illustrator:Thé Tjong-Khing • Romania: Author: Iuliu Ratiu; Illustrator: Stan Done • Russia: Illustrator: Nikolai Popov • Serbia: Author: Dragana Litricˇin-Dunic´ • Slovak Republic: Author: Ján Navrátil; Illustrator: Olga Bajusová • Slovenia: Illustrator: Lila Prap • South Africa: Author: Beverley Naidoo; Illustrator: Piet Grobler • Spain: Author: María Asun Landa; Illustrator: Ulises Wensell • Sweden: Barbro Lindgren; Illustrator: Eva Eriksson • Switzerland: Author: Jürg Schubiger; Illustrator: Hannes Binder • Turkey: Author:Ayla Çinarogˇlu; Illustrator: Nazan Erkmen • United Kingdom: Author: David Almond; Illustrator: Jan Pien¯kowski • USA: Author: Lloyd Alexander; Illustrator: David Wiesner

The HCA Awards are The international jury (see Bookbird 45.3) under presented to an author the leadership of Zohreh Ghaeni will meet in March and an illustrator whose 2008 to select the winners of the 2008 Andersen Awards. The results will be made public at the complete works have Bologna Children’s Book Fair, Monday, 31 March made an important and 2008 and the awards will be presented to the winners lasting contribution to at the 31st IBBY congress in Copenhagen, Denmark children’s literature on 7 September 2008.

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IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award 2008

The IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award and young people. The 2008 jury comprises was established in 1986 during the IBBY Elda Nogueira (Brazil) as chair, Hannelore congress in Tokyo. The Asahi Shimbun news- Daubert (Germany), Reina Duarte (Spain),Ann paper company sponsors the award, allowing Lazim (UK), Ahmad Redza (Malaysia) and Ira IBBY to present the winners with US $10,000. Saxena (India). Biennially,the jury,made up of members of the The winners will be announced at the IBBY IBBY Executive Committee, choose two press conference at the Bologna Children's groups or institutions from nominations made Book Fair on Monday, 31 March 2008. They by the IBBY National Sections.The jury looks will receive their prizes at the 31st IBBY for programmes that are making a lasting Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark. contribution to reading promotion for children The nominations for the 2008 award are:

• SLAV/KwaZulu Natal Support Project, South Africa, nominated by IBBY Australia. (www.slav.schools.net.au/slav.html) • Biblionef, South Africa, nominated by IBBY Canada. (www.biblionefsa.org.za) • Bedrich Benes Buchlovan Library:The Night with Andersen, Czech Republic, nominated by Czech IBBY. (www.knihovnabbb.cz/cz/noc_s_andersenem) • Village Library Project of the Society for All Round Development (SARD), India, nominated by IBBY India and supported by IBBY Nepal. (www.sardindia.org) • Action with Lao Children, Laos, nominated by IBBY Japan. (www.directoryofngos.org/ngo4.cfm?id=74) • Grupo Cerra Largo de Promoción de la Lectura, Uruguay, nomi- nated by IBBY Netherlands. • National Reading Campaign of the Tamer Institute for Community Education, Palestine, nominated by IBBY Palestine and supported by IBBY Sweden. (www.tamerinst.org) • Fundación Taller de Letras Jordi Sierra i Fabra, Colombia, nominated by IBBY Spain. (www.sierraifabra.com/ant/secciones/Fundacion_Taller_JSF/) • Editions Bakame, Books for Children in Rwanda, Rwanda, nominated by Swiss IBBY and supported by IBBY Germany and IBBY Netherlands. (www.bakame.rw) • The Akili Trust Reading Development The jury looks for Project, Kenya, nominated by British IBBY. programmes that are making (www.akilitrust.org) a lasting contribution to • Lubuto Library Project, Zambia, nominated by reading promotion for USBBY.(www.lubuto.org) children and young people

No. 4 – 2007 / 59 FOCUS IBBY

SACL–IBBY Motorbike Libraries: An Innovation

Since February 2006, a jingle encouraging a love of reading has been heard in several places around Indonesia. The song comes from motorised tricycle libraries taking reading material to children and their communities. Attracted by the catchy jingle and the colourful design of the library, children flock to just browse and read or to borrow books. Each library is contained in a wooden structure integrated into the design of the motor tricycle and can carry up to a thousand books. Each housing is painted a different colour and covered with illustrations taken from books published by In Maumere, Flores, anywhere is a good spot for reading! the Society for the Advancement of Children’s Literature (SACL). To date, SACL has launched eight motorbike libraries. The purchase and stocking with books of six of them was supported by IBBY.The other two were supported by other international and local donors, with additional funding from SACL. This fruitful co-operation represents an international network of people who are committed to disseminating IBBY’s message: ‘The Child’s Right to Become a Reader. Books for Children Everywhere.’ The SACL–IBBY motorbike libraries serve many kinds of communities in need.These include schools and communities in The city of Maumere is proud of its motorbike library, seen here during the Independence Day parade. refugee camps in areas that have been affected by natural disasters; orphanages, urban villages, schools that have no libraries; and in areas where there is a lower level of education. Overall, our motorbike libraries are serving around 60 schools, 10 villages and dozens of communities that have no other access to books. The SACL–IBBY motorbike libraries are an innovation; they are the first to operate in Indonesia and perhaps even in the world! SACL has pioneered the concept and it is well received throughout the country. Moreover, the idea can be adapted and improved by anyone according to local aims and needs. Preparing to return books at a Catholic primary school in Yogyakarta, Java. Why a motorbike library? It is cheaper than a car or bus library and it is also more mobile and practical since a motorbike can travel along narrow streets, through crowded neighbourhoods and over rough roads with little difficulty. Each motorbike library becomes integrated into the life of the community: it can come right up to The motorbike can park the very doors of the community it serves. The outside the local mosque, motorbike can park outside the local mosque, in a in a narrow school or narrow school or orphanage yard or actually inside a orphanage yard or actually refugee camp.The libraries can be modified depending inside a refugee camp on local needs; this makes motorbike libraries ideal for adaptation in other countries.

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Sustainability is very important when running surrounded by banana trees and paddy fields, a library, and the guardians or recipients of each the motorbike library was parked in the yard of motorbike library are carefully chosen to be sure a small mosque. Children drawn by the library’s that we can guarantee that the libraries will jingle, crowded around the motorbike choosing benefit their communities. These guardians – books, while others were sitting on the plat- who drive the motorbikes and act as librarian, form outside the mosque waiting for their reading animator and mechanic – are expected chosen books to be registered by the librarian. to expand their networks and serve more people A group of parents, mostly mothers, smiled and in their local communities. greeted us by asking:‘Dari IBBY,ya?’ (‘Are you In March 2007, Liz Page came to Indonesia from IBBY?’). No wonder! IBBY’s logo was to see how the SACL–IBBY motorbike printed on all four sides of the library, along libraries operate. Together we travelled to with the logos of SACL and our local partner. Yogyakarta in Southern Java, parts of which had We were surprised and very happy to hear it: been hit by a major earthquake in 2006. Two the name IBBY seems to be easy to pronounce motorbike libraries have been donated in the and remember for the local people: ibbi! But region to give children access to books even most importantly they were also saying:‘Thank though their schools had been devastated. In you for your big treat.’ one village on the outskirts of Yogyakarta Murti Bunanta

Jo Tenfjord 1918–2007

Jo Giæver Tenfjord – founder of the Norwegian section of IBBY – died on 22 June, on one of those fascinating light Norwegian summer nights that she used to love. She was almost 89 years old, and like King David from the Bible, she said that she was ‘full of days’, and wanted to die – her body worn away by illnesses. But up to her last hours she was engaged with all of us around her, relatives and friends. She was an honorary member of IBBY – no wonder! Together with, among others, Lisa Tetzner and Erich Kästner, she was present at the conference in Munich in 1951, initiated by the legendary Jella Lepman, who was also the founder of the International Youth Library in Munich. ‘International Understanding through Children’s Books’ was the theme of this conference, which was followed up in 1953 in Zurich, when IBBY was officially established. Jo was also present at that conference and was elected a member of the Executive Commit- tee, a position she held until 1970. From 1958 to 1968 she was a member of the Hans Christian Andersen Award jury, and again served Jo Tenfjord celebrating, with IBBY Norway, on the jury from 1984 to 1986. Probably, she is the person who was her 80th birthday as the queen of Norwegian children’s literature present at the most IBBY conferences, up to the Dutch congress in 1996, when she had reached the age of 78. Besides being an honorary member of IBBY, she received the Jella Lepman Medal in 1991, and

No. 4 – 2007 / 61 FOCUS IBBY

twice her books have been nominated for the Besides her work with children’s literature, Jo IBBY Honour List (1978 for writing, 1984 for was for many years president of the Norwegian translation). section of UNICEF, president of Children’s Jo made her debut as an author when she was International Summer Villages (CISV), and she just 23 and continued to write until, at the age was also president of the consulting committee of 76, she wrote her last book, Sally sjørøverdatter, for Norwegian radio and TV. which in its German translation, Sally und das But first and foremost Jo Tenfjord was of vital Geheimnis der Schatzinsel, won a German literary importance for children’s literature in Norway, prize. During the years in between, she wrote a which has blossomed over the last half century great variety of works for children – nursery – both in amount and quality. Norwegian rhymes, novels, text for picturebooks – and she children’s books cross frontiers, and there is was a most competent editor of collections of official support as regards the best text, layout fairy tales, fables and myths from many countries and illustrations; Norway also has a Children’s and eras. She also was a devoted translator of Book Institute. Jo Tenfjord has always been an books by Maria Gripe and Astrid Lindgren important figure in the background, but more among others. During her last 40 years, Astrid often like a happy figurehead. Flowers have Lindgren always asked Jo to be her Norwegian grown in her footsteps! translator, and they were close friends. Tordis Ørjasæter

Indian children and their mothers’ saris star in this gentle, humorous, cultural offering told in a simple text. The stage is set as a child wrapped in a sari peers out with larger-than- life eyes. The sari becomes a train, backdrop for a song and dance routine, river, rope, hiding place and a handkerchief to wipe a child’s nose. The mood changes as the children tire and the sari becomes a blanket, a hammock, and a place to hers’ saris are revealed as tangible evidence of dream. Mot SANDHYA RAO (illus Nina Sabnani) the love between mother and child. The illustrator’s use of mixed media – photographs of MY MOTHER’S SARI saris, large double-paged illustrations – and a stylised, soft background intricately weaves the rich textures and colours First published in India by Tulika Publishers in English; of saris with the childlike illustrations of children. Endpapers distributed in the US by North-South Books, New York demonstrate an eight-step guide for wrapping and wearing 24pp ISBN-13: 9780735821019; ISBN-10: 0735821011 the sari, which will also be of interest to older readers. MY (picturebook, 4–8) MOTHER’S SARI was selected for USBBY’s 2007 Outstanding International Booklist. Maureen White

62 / BOOKBIRD Bookbird (ISSN 0006-7377) is published quarterly, at the beginning of January, April, July and October. (Issues may occasionally be published early to mark particular occasions.) Annual subscriptions can start at any time of the year, and you will receive the current issue and the next three, after which you will be asked to renew your subscription.

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