Munhak Tokpon in ten volumes. This contains nursery rhymes, short stories, drama,
poetry and even short novels and is attractively illustrated. A Korean Modern Children’s
Literature Institute was established in Seoul in 1978.
IndonesiaUntil independence in 1949, Indonesia was a Dutch colony, and Dutch and English
were the main languages of instruction in the schools. The official language is now
Bahasa Indonesia, a form of Malay.
The classical literature of Indonesia was influenced by Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian,
and only recently have classical stories been written down in a form suitable for
children. Apart from traditional rhymes and some songs, children’s literature has been
slow to develop. However, the country participated in the ASEAN cooperative publishing
project and in 1987 Murti Bunanta suggested that strong action was needed to improve
and promote children’s books and a Society for the Advancement of Children’s Literature
was founded in the following year; this became a National Section of IBBY in 1971.
Hardiyono, who began to illustrate books for children in 1971, was the first winner of
the Indonesian IBBY Competition for Illustrations in 1991. Toety Maklis is a pioneer in
writing for small children and frequently uses environmental themes. Suyadi both writes
and illustrates: Gua Terlarang [The Forbidden Cave] and Made Dan Empat Teman [Man
and His Four Friends] are typical of his work. Salim M. felt the need to provide
children’s books with illustrations that are typically Indonesian. Dwianto Setyawan
began by writing for adults but was motivated to write for children when he saw the
flood of translated books coming on to the Indonesian market, particularly those by Enid
Blyton. He subsequently wrote short stories, adventure serials and picture books, but
catered mainly for 11 to 13-year-olds.
With these, and other promising writers and illustrators ready to produce books for
children, the children’s literature scene in Indonesia is set to develop rapidly.
Further ReadingDashdondog, J. (1991) ‘When did children’s literature appear in Mongolia?’, Bookbird 29 3: 3–6.
Ho Leina (1993) ‘Of morals, misguided writing and commercialism: the essence of children’s
literature in Singapore’, International Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship 8, 3:
181–189.
Hoang Nguyen (1984) ‘Literature for young people in Vietnam’, Bookbird 1:24–26.
Muniandy, T. (1982) ‘The changing social context’, in Story in the Child’s Changing World. The
Papers and Proceedings of the 18th Congress of the International Board on Books for Young
People, 1982, Cambridge: IBBY.
818 THE WORLD OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE