Books, Children and Men

by Paul Hazard

Hazard, Paul

Genres: Childrens, Literary Criticism, Literature

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1932

About the author

Paul Hazard was an eminent French historian of ideas and a pioneering scholar of comparative literature. After teaching at the University of Lyon and the Sorbonne, he was appointed to the chair of comparative literature at the Collège de France in 1925 and in 1940 was elected to the French Academy. From 1932 on Hazard also taught at regular intervals at Columbia University, and he was in New York when the Nazis occupied France in 1941. He immediately returned to France to assume the rectorship of the University of Paris but was rejected for the position by the Nazis. Hazard’s reputation rests on two major works of intellectual history: The Crisis of the European Mind, from 1935, and its sequel, European Thought in the Eighteenth Century: From Montesquieu to Lessing, published posthumously in 1946.

Reviews

[Evan Þ. · Rating 4 out of 5]

M. Hazard, a French literature professor, writes in 1932 on the problems and experience of children's fiction in Europe through the Early Modern and Modern eras. While enthusiastic about the concept of books for children, he is negative on many if not most actual attempts to write children's books, deeming them too educational and not so fun, thus losing the interest and attention of young readers. (And, if I can generalize from his quotes from some early French children's books, I'd agree.)

In contrast to these, he points to how children have flocked to books like Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels: even though they weren't written for children, they contain so many exciting happenings that children eagerly adopted them. These and other similar books were translated into many other European languages for children. And, Hazard continues, this shows how internationalist good children's books are: they borrow from other countries, and they can be set around the world for children to happily read of other cultures with enthusiasm.

I agree with Hazard's portrayal, but I think he could emphasize more the education that can happen in good children's books in the course of the exciting story. He does mention it, though, so I suspect his comparative neglect is a product of his time and the background against which he was writing?

[Juan Ramírez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro excelente para todo aquel que se desee adentrarse en el universo de la infancia.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although published in French in 1933 and in the US in 1943, Hazard's sprightly text is passionate, compelling and thoughtfully plotted out as he explores the world of children's literature, not from the typical English perspective but from a truly European point of view and places children's literature as part of literature as a whole with wonderful acumen and depth - a lovely book indeed! Very Northrop Frye!

[LeAnne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth reading even if it was written in the 1940s.