Van den Bossche, Sara

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Ghent University Academic Bibliography

Book ReviewsBarnlitteraturens värden och värderingar [The values and evaluations of children’sliterature]. Eds Sara Kärrholm and Paul Tenngart. Lund: Studentlitteratur,2012. 346 pages.In the past few years, the publishing house Studentlitteratur has released someof the most widely known theoretical works on children’s literature in Sweden.Its most influential titles include Maria Nikolajeva’s Bilderbokens pusselbitar [Thejigsaw pieces of picture books] (2000), Barnbokens byggklossar [The building bricksof children’s books] (2004), and Lena Kåreland’s Barnboken i samhället [Thechildren’s book in society] (2009). Now, Studentlitteratur again positions itselfin the vanguard of children’s literature research by publishing Barnlitteraturensvärden och värderingar [The values and evaluations of children’s literature], a richanthology on the values and evaluations of children’s literature.The volume collects a large number of well-written and well-foundedarticles covering the impact of ideological judgments on the way children’sliterature is valued and describing what kinds of attitudes towards society,culture, and humanity are being disseminated by children’s books. In theirintroduction, editors Sara Kärrholm and Paul Tenngart question the binarynature of the opposition between didactics and aesthetics, two key issues inchildren’s literature research. These do indeed run as a connecting threadthrough the anthology, part one of which is devoted to the values (värden) ofchildren’s literature.The opening chapter is a compelling essay by Paul Tenngart on the role ofchildren’s literature in the psychological socialisation of young readers. He drawson cognitive theory to argue that reading prepares children to flexibly respondto problems, from which he draws the conclusion that children’s books shapeour society. Novelist Annika Widholm’s starting point is the United Nations’Declaration of the Rights of the Child. She contends that awareness on thesubject can more easily be raised through a narrative and also demonstrateschildren’s book characters’ potential to set an example in this matter. Thepotential contribution of the comic series Illustrerade klassiker [Classics illustrated]to child readers’ literary socialisation as they step from comic to Literature (withInternational Research in Children’s Literature 6.2 (2013): 218–234Edinburgh University Press© International Research Society for Children’s Literaturewww.euppublishing.com/irclBOOK REVIEWS 219a capital L) is discussed by Anders Mortensen. In two case studies, he illustratesthe series’ normative and didactic intentions.The section on evaluations (värderingar) of children’s literature starts witha chapter by Tuva Åkerström, who very explicitly deals with the overarchingtension ‘aesthetical/pedagogical’. She explains how these opposing bundlesof norms (in the shape of either nostalgic views on childhood or adultpredominance) influence the evaluation of children’s literature. Astrid Lindgrenis incontournable in the Swedish children’s literary field and referred to in overhalf of the chapters in this volume. The set of norms guiding her activitiesas an editor at the publishing house Rabén & Sjögren is explored by HeleneEhriander. By analysing Lindgren’s correspondence with author Eva Bergold in1966, Ehriander reveals that Lindgren did not affiliate with the radical socialideals budding around that time. Sara Kärrholm’s chapter deals with emergingviews on ideology critique as mirrored in left-wing cultural magazine Ord &Bild [Word & image] in the 1970s. Back then, critics aimed at uncovering‘false’ representations of ‘reality’ in children’s books and solely valued mimeticliterature.An international perspective is adopted in part three. First, Lisa Källströminvestigates the idea of collective nostalgia as evidenced in conceptions of Swedenas a nation of idyllic ‘noisy villages’ in German popular culture. The examples shestudies bear testimony to the contradictory attitudes held towards this fantasy.After Astrid Lindgren, Selma Lagerlöf is another canonical Swedish authorwhose work could not possibly be overlooked. Her Nils Holgerssons underbara resagenom Sverige (published in English as The Wonderful Adventures of Nils) was originallyintended as a geographical handbook, but it unexpectedly transcended nationalboundaries. Anna Smedberg Bondesson demonstrates how Nils even speaks toJapanese, Italian, American, and German audiences. The fairly new branch ofresearch of ecocriticism is represented by Margaretha Ullström’s examination ofthe image of the wolf in children’s books. She links the heightened respect for theanimals in recent children’s books to increased awareness of climate change.Martin Hellström’s analysis of the notion of friendship in Eva Lindström’soeuvre opens the section on picturebooks. He demonstrates that the author’s useof a restricted first-person perspective, bordering on egocentrism, breaches theimplicit norms of how to treat the concept of friendship. Next, Åsa Warnqvistdraws an in-depth picture of Pija Lindenbaum as a ‘norm critic’, whose highlydisruptive elements in her picturebooks challenge prevailing norms regardingfamily life, power, gender, and sexual inclination. Maria Ulfgard discusses thesuitability of a book from the popular series on Alfons Åberg dealing withwar refugees. In a case study probing trainee teachers’ response to Alfons ochsoldatpappan [Alfons and the soldier daddy], she uncovers unexpected prejudicesand stereotypical depictions of gender and ethnicity.In the contribution opening the next section, Anna Clara Törnqvist refutesthe assumption that contemporary young-adult writers are free to discusswhatever topic they want. She observes that YA literature is still curtailed byseveral (mainly pedagogical) regulations, as is shown in her reception study220 BOOK REVIEWSof Peter Pohl’s controversial novel Nu heter jag Nirak [Now I’m called Nirak](2007). Next, Bibi Jonsson addresses the implications of the portrayal of lesbiandesire in typical girls’ books from the 1950s and 1960s. Jonsson explains whyshe does not find the novels entirely groundbreaking, despite their breachingheteronormativity. In the last chapter on YA literature, Ann Steiner contradictsyoung girls’ assumed open-mindedness as regards sexual matters by analysingthe depiction of sexual desire in Katarina von Bredow’s oeuvre. She finds thatthe girl characters are taught to control their sexuality while oscillating between(self-)images of madonnas or whores.The final subdivision deals with children’s film and TV. Tommy Gustafssonexplores the tension between the ‘good’ transfer of historical knowledge and the‘bad’ entertainment value in the 1970 TV series Il était une fois l’homme [Onceupon a time . . . man]. He concludes that it is appreciated for its pedagogicalvalue despite the heavy censoring of historical facts in favour of creating tensionand empathy. Lastly, Åsa Bergström and Anders Wilhelm Åberg thoroughlyand convincingly scrutinise representations of ethnicity, class, and gender (theformer two hardly touched upon elsewhere in the anthology) in three differentfilm adaptations of one single manuscript from 1944, 1974, and 2006. Theyundercut the persistent idea of Swedish children’s film as representing an Edenic‘Bullerbytillvaro’ [noisy village existence] by foregrounding the striking shiftsin depiction of social conflicts and ethnic stereotypes in the three films. Thiscontribution truly is a worthy conclusion to the volume.As mentioned before, the pedagogic/literary-duality underpins theargumentation of several of the anthology’s chapters. Gender issues, too, are highon the contributors’ agenda, reflecting a general concern in Swedish society forjämställdhet or gender equality. Although these subjects are tackled from variousangles, small hints of repetition and one-sidedness creep in throughout the book.Moreover, the title brings to mind the position of children’s literature in thebroader literary field, along with literary sociological questions, such as children’sliterary awards and criticism, which are not dealt with at all. The inclusion ofa discussion of these issues might have further enriched this already valuablevolume.Sara Van den BosscheDepartment of Literary Studies – Scandinavian LiteraturesGhent University, BelgiumDOI: 10.3366/ircl.2013.0100Subjectivity in Asian Children’s Literature and Film: Global Theories and Implications. Ed.John Stephens. New York and London: Routledge, 2013. 232 pages.This collection of essays will reach out to readers who are interested in theissue of subjectivity in children’s literature, and will, if they are not familiarwith subjectivity in the Asian context, open the door for discussion in this area.The first chapter, by the editor John Stephens, ‘The Politics of Identity: ATranscultural Perspective on Subjectivity in Writing for Children’, is a reliable

Review Barnlitteraturens värden och värderingar [The values and evaluations of children's literature]

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Review Barnlitteraturens värden och värderingar [The values and evaluations of children's literature]

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