served as a watershed in children’s literature; many children’s books which had been
steadily reprinting for years finally disappeared at this time.
Later, the war influenced the content of children’s books, particularly from the 1960s
onwards when writers who had themselves been children during the war began to
produce stories based on their own childhood experiences. Authors wrote from different
viewpoints; some had been refugees, some had been evacuated to safe areas, some had
lived under occupation and some had experienced at close quarters the treatment of the
Jewish population. Anne Frank’s Diary, published in The Netherlands in 1947, with its
account of day-to-day life hiding from the Nazis during the occupation, has captured the
imagination of young people worldwide.
From 1945 until the late 1980s, the countries of Eastern Europe shared similar views
about children’s books, which were particularly subject to political pressure. However,
nations which have re-emerged in the last ten years such as Bosnia, Croatia, the Ukraine
and Latvia can trace an independent children’s literature; the Czechs and Slovaks had
always maintained their own literature and so the break up of Czechoslovakia into its
two constituent parts after the ‘velvet’ revolution of 1989 made little difference.
A few European nations share the same language. In Great Britain and Ireland the
common language is English; writers have moved easily between Ireland, England,
Scotland and Wales, having their books published in London or in Glasgow or
Edinburgh, whatever their roots. C.S.Lewis whose Chronicles of Narnia seem to be
archetypal English fantasy was born in Northern Ireland; J.M. Barrie, whose Peter Pan
seems another very English fantasy figure, was very much a Scot. Similarly, Germany,
Austria and much of Switzerland share a common language and books and authors
move freely from one to another.
In many European countries minority languages were actively suppressed until
comparatively recently but, partly because of the existence of traditional stories, have
been kept alive and are now being encouraged and supported. Trans-border alliances
are being forged, for example among the Celtic languages and the Nordic languages. In
1982 the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages, financed by the European
Commission, was set up, with an office in Dublin, Eire, a Children’s Publishing
Secretariat, currently in Brittany, and an information centre in Brussels. This seeks to
conserve and promote the lesser-used indigenous languages of the European Union,
such as Welsh, Gaelic, Breton, Basque, Ladin, Occitan, Sorbian, Frisian and Cornish.
The spread of democracy in the last quarter of the twentieth century has helped: for
example, Catalan was recognised as an official language after Spain became a
democracy in 1978 and with the founding of the Catalan Biblioteca de Catalunya in
Barcelona in 1987, came the Catalan Institute of Children’s Literature.
The market for children’s books in some of the lesser-used languages is very limited
and precludes the printing of any title in large quantities, and hence at low prices. In
1968 an easy reader, Gaelg trooid Jallooghyn by Brian Macstoyll, showing a brother and
sister engaged in a variety of activities, was published in Manx and the famous fictional
dog, Spot, the creation of Eric Hill, has made his contribution by appearing in a Cornish
language version. Children’s books in Manx and Cornish are rare but those in Welsh,
Gaelic and Catalan have gone from strength to strength.
648 THE WORLD OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE