Beyond Babar: The European Tradition in Children's Literature

by Sandra L. Beckett (Editor), Maria Nikolajeva (Editor)

All too often, attention is paid only to those children's novels that were written in English, with non-English-language works being passed over and neglected. Beyond Babar: The European Tradition in Children's Literature examines eleven of the most celebrated European children's novels in substantial, critical essays written by well-known international scholars. This approach provides a comprehensive discussion of the selected works from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Each essay offers a critical introduction to the text that can serve as a point of departure for literary scholars, professors of children's literature, primary and secondary school teachers, and librarians who are interested in texts that cross languages and cultures. Beyond Babar is especially meant to assist instructors of children's literature who would like to use these texts in the classroom, in order to begin to redress the English-language dominance of many children's literature courses. This volume will also be of interest to the general public, as its ultimate aim is to bring to the attention of all English-speaking readers the literature from other parts of the world, in this case from Europe. Beyond Babar helps to facilitate the border crossings of these European masterpieces of children's literature into the English-speaking world.

336 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 2006

Reviews

[Barb Middleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This scholarly look at children's books in Europe was dense and interesting. I skimmed some chapters because they didn't make sense as I had not read the books. The in-depth look at "The Neverending Story" was my favorite chapter and I really like Maria Nikolajeva's writing; the chapters she wrote were excellent. If you like to write book reviews then you might like this scholarly look at how children's literature professors examine novels placing them within historical, literary, political, social, and cultural contexts.

[Nicole C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this collection of essays rather randomly, as one can do these days, thanks to technology. While taking a course last semester on reading materials for children, my classmate mentioned Pippi Longstocking in a comment, which led me to remember my fondness for that iconoclastic little redhead and her adventures.

One thing that always stuck with me was the time when her friends, Annika and Tommy, take the chillilug pill, which will supposedly make them impervious to growing up. They had to say a little rhyme with it:
"Pretty little chillilug,
I don't want to grow bug."
Not big, because that will have the opposite effect, you see.

Now, I wasn't entirely sure about the above, which led to a Google search, which also gave me which Pippi book it was found in - Pippi in the South Seas. The search result came from a Google books preview of THIS book. I was fascinated by what I could read of it, and promptly placed a request through my University library for it (another perk of being a student again that somehow I neglected to explore last summer).

This book, while a bit scholarly, is still accessible to the common reader and talks about various children's books that originated in other countries and have been translated into English, with varying degrees of success. Some I had heard of - Pippi, of course, but also The Neverending Story - and others I had not - The Befana's Toyshop, for example, or Conrad/Konrad. Even the books I was unfamilar with still taught me some interesting tidbits about translation issues, perceptions of various plot points or characterisations depending on the country, and so on. It also gave me some new books to add to my list!