researchers into the historical background of children’s literature, academic
theoreticians and literary critics an outlet for their material’. Also helpful is the column
by Karen Jameyson, ‘News from down under’, in The Horn Book Magazine. (For
Children’s Literature Association of New Zealand: Yearbook see Reetz 1994.)
Some International JournalsSpace does not permit a discussion of the major children’s literature journals in
languages other than English. A description of them can be found in Reetz 1994 and in
some cases in the chapter devoted to the country of publication in International Youth
Library 1991.
In 1949 the International Youth Library (IYL) was founded in Munich by Jella
Lepman, and the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) began
organising soon after. IBBY’s journal is Bookbird, which began publication in Vienna in
1962; it carries informational articles about authors, illustrators, and children’s books
from all over the world. The journal has had a series of homes through the years, but is
now Bookbird: World of Children’s Books, and is edited by Meena Khorana, Morgan State
University, Baltimore, Maryland. Among the publications of the IYL is The White Ravens:
A Selection of International Children’s and Youth Literature. This annual contains reviews
of 300 to 400 recent books which are particularly recommended for translation into
other languages.
Other recent international journals of interest are Merveilles et Contes [Marvels and
Tales] (1987-) and JACL: Journal of African Children’s Literature (1989-). Merveilles et
Contes is a semi-annual with text in English, French, Spanish, German, or Italian, with
an English summary. Although not exclusively devoted to children’s literature, every
issue contains at least one article on the subject, as well as reviews of scholarly books.
JACL moved from Nigeria to the USA with its editor, Osayimwense Osa, in 1990. Its
subject is literature for and about black children all over the world.
It is fitting that this survey should end with a discussion of Phaedrus: An International
Journal of Children’s Literature Research. Edited by James Fraser, Phaedrus was
initiated in the autumn of 1973 in an effort to acquaint scholars with the nature and
extent of international children’s literature research. The intent was to complement
Children’s Literature Abstracts, which had just published its first issue that spring, and
which emphasised professional journals of children’s literature and library service. In
spite of valiant efforts to cover the international field and experiments with different
publishers and journal frequencies, Phaedrus finally ceased publication in 1988 after
the publication of a joint issue with Die Schieffertafel.
The problems of access to international periodicals that Phacdrus and
Children’s Literature Abstracts attempted to address in 1973 have yet to be solved. The
most helpful printed bibliography to date is Linnea Hendrickson’s (Hendrickson 1987),
which is in the process of revision. It is limited, however, to books and articles in
English. The on-line/CD-Rom data bases, ERIC and MLA, cover only a limited number
of children’s literature journals. Perhaps the eventual answer lies in CLIP (Children’s
Literature in Periodicals), an international indexing project initiated by the Swedish
Institute for Children’s Books in the autumn of 1992 and including children’s book
488 THE CONTEXT OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE