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The Nordic Countries
Boel Westin
Children’s literature in the Nordic countries is comparatively well thought of. There are
special Institutes for children’s books in Finland, Norway and Sweden. Criticism and
research are growing and several dissertations have been published since the 1970s,
mainly in Sweden. Since 1983 there has been a special Chair of Children’s Literature at
the University of Stockholm. Children’s reading has been stimulated in various ways
through collaboration between schools and the public libraries. As a cultural export
children’s literature has been quite successful and many Nordic children’s authors are
internationally well-known. Among those who have been awarded the prestigious
H.C.Andersen Medal are Astrid Lindgren and Maria Gripe (Sweden), Tove Jansson
(Finland), Cecil Bødker, Ib Spang Olsen and Svend Otto S (Denmark) and Tormod
Haugen (Norway).
The history of Nordic children’s literature displays some obvious similarities between
the countries; there are differences, partly due to various political conditions. In Finland
and Norway children’s books have played a part in the struggle for a national identity.
Finland was an integral part of Sweden for 600 years (until 1809), then a duchy within
the Russian Empire, and gained its independence in 1917. Since its children’s literature
had for a long time been written in Swedish, the production of a Finnish children’s
literature became of vital importance. Norway achieved independence from Denmark in
1814 but then became part of a union with Sweden until 1905. The struggle for a
national identity as well as a native literary language is clearly reflected in children’s
books. They have became a vital feature of the nation’s cultural life.
The first books for children in the Nordic countries were published in the sixteenth
century and into the early nineteenth century there was a strong reliance on imported
books (and pictures), mostly translations and adaptations of religious texts, courtesy
books and fables, generally from Germany and France. In Iceland, where children’s
literature is a late phenomenon, generally dating from after the Second World War, the
first children’s book appeared in 1780.
The national awakening during the romantic period in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries paved the way for national children’s literatures; collections of folk-
tales, rhymes and songs were published in the mid-nineteenth century, and the first
picture books appeared around the 1880s. The century ended in a wave of fairy tales,
often issued in annuals, short story collections and magazines. Elementary school
reforms, the improved printing techniques, new ideas about child-rearing and society’s
growing interest in children’s social upbringing prepared the ground for an expanding