improvement of the Gotthard pass and the first liberation movements of the pioneer
cantons of Switzerland in the twelfth century.
The provinciality of Swiss children’s literature is cut across by the work of the two
emigrants Lisa Tetzner (1894–1963) and Kurt Held (1897–1959). Emigrating from
Germany to Switzerland in 1933, they lived in Ticino canton, collaborating closely on
young people’s books that were quickly to become classics: Die Kinder aus Nummer 67
[The Children from Number 67] (9 vols, 1933–1949), Die schwarzen Brüder [The Dark
Brothers] (2 vols, 1940–1942), Die rote Zora und ihre Bande [Red Zora and her Gang]
(1941), the four-volume cycle Giuseppe and Maria (1955–1956) and others. These stories
express the hope that young people will succeed in building a better world, with fairer
social circumstances and no wars. Their mixture of adventure, social commitment and
lifelike description of milieu is close to the German tradition of the 1920s.
The writers who worked to develop a native Swiss literature for the young continued to
determine its character into the 1960s. In the 1970s a generation of authors arose who
published their books in West Germany again. German-Swiss children’s literature was
reintegrated into German-language children’s literature with the works of Eveline Hasler,
Franz Hohler, Hanna Johansen, Hans Manz, Regine Schindler and others. At the same
time a trend towards play and imagination can be discerned, writing for children had
broken out of the schoolroom and opened new fields for itself. By word-play or
unaccustomed uses of language the new texts sharpened perception of reality. Fantasy
was the new form for critical discussion of social reality, most particularly the
destruction of the environment.
With few exceptions narrative literature for children circulates only within
Switzerland, indeed only within its own language area. In contrast, the making of
picture books has found international recognition. Ernst Kreidolf (1863–1956) as an
exponent of Jugendstil is the first major name here. His picture books, almost
exclusively filled with personified plants and animals, show great technical skill and
precise botanical and zoological knowledge. The imaginative mixing of man, plant and
animal corresponded both to the mood of the time with its longing for communion with
nature, and to the idea that children enjoy particular closeness to all creatures.
The Second World War and the following years are the classical age of the Swiss
picture book. Alois Carigiet (1902–1987), Hans Fischer (1909–1958) and Felix Hoffmann
(1911–1975) produced books of world rank. Carigiet’s landscapes with their impressive
bold perspective, Fischer’s playfully sketched animal fables, and Hoffmann’s
individualistic combination of fairy tale fantasy and everyday reality, all share—despite
their differences—outstanding mastery of technique and deep insight into the workings
of a child’s mind.
Alongside painting as ‘fine art’, poster art had a great share in picture book art. As
well as Carigiet and Fischer, other illustrators had made their name with posters:
Herbert Leupin (b.1916), Celestino Piatti (b.1922), later Etienne Delessert (b.1941).
Fischer had at an early date incorporated cartoon film techniques in his presentation of
sequences of movement. In the 1980s techniques of film and comic strip appeared in
picture books, for instance by Jörg Müller (b.1942) and Etienne Delessert. Both these
illustrators, under changed circumstances, repeat the quest for nearness to nature
which was a vital aspect of Ernst Kreidolf’s work almost a century before. French-
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