Children's Literature in the Nordic World

This volume introduces an international readership to the role books have played in the lives and upbringing of young people in the Nordic countries from the 1750s until today. Charlotte Appel and Nina Christensen look beyond an overview of noteworthy texts and characters to address the regions distinctive reading cultures and the interactions between literature and changing views of childhood, with a special focus on Denmark. The emergence of a dedicated market for childrens books in the Global North coincided with national school reforms, when Luthers Small Catechism started to be supplementedor replacedby new books published for and about young readers, learners, and citizens. Childrens use of books and media is closely related to adults wishes to influence the present and future of a child through instruction, entertainment, or play. Chapters point to strong continuities as well as remarkable changes in the relationships between child readers and adult authors, artists, publishers, teachers, librarians, and parents through the centuries. Focusing on children as the central users and producers of texts, this interdisciplinary and transnational history shows how childrens exposure to and use of media impacted the Nordic welfare state, and vice versa. The ways adults facilitatedand in some cases preventedaccess to picture books, schoolbooks, textbooks, comics, magazines, and other media to youth between infancy and adolescence reveals the complicated interplay between childrens internal wishes and grown-ups external expectations over time. As narratives for young audiences are continuously rewritten, republished, and adapted into new forms, this pithy synthesis brings forward new knowledge about the material and social history of books, literature, and childhood.