Ma. Cristina Thomson de Grondona White Laura Canteros E.S.L.V. S. B. Spangenberg; I.E.S. J.R. Fernández ; A.A.T.I.
Abstract: “A bridge of books” was what Jella Lepman –founder of IBBY-- envisioned as tool to bring children together and shield them from devastating experiences such as wars. This presentation aims at showing how this international organisation contributes to disseminate the best books for children and young people worldwide through their unique and prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award or, as it is familiarly known, “the Little Nobel prize”. It will be illustrated by reference to the contribution of the six English-speaking women writers honoured by IBBY so far.
Introduction
Similarly to other “new literatures” such as national, ethnic, post-colonial and others, literature for children also has reached status and acceptance in the last decades. Many reasons account for this change usually emerging from changes in socio-cultural paradigms, views of childhood representations, and exponential sci- tech developments. During the last century, in particular, the voices of prestigious writers have helped to transform the formerly smug and inane edifying tone of texts addressed to children into vigorous writings portraying the diversity of
human experience just as they see it reflected in everyday experience. These distinctive voices have marked the coming-of-age of a genre distinguished by quality books that have steadily provided the young with imaginative tools to envisage new worlds, create and shape identity and, above all, to show appreciation for the culture of “otherness”.
The relevance of children's reading for promoting international, trans-cultural and trans-ethnic understanding finds an encouraging historical precedent in Jella Lepman, a German Jewish refugee journalist whose mission was to ensure children´s access to books of high literary and artistic standards. In 1952, aided by world publishers and personalities such as Bertrand Russell, Ortega y Gasset and Eleanor Roosevelt, among others, she founded IBBY –the International Board of Books for Young People—the worldwide organisation responsible for materialising her vision. The creation of IBBY´s Hans Christian Andersen Award --also called the
“little Nobel Prize”-- has been instrumental in fostering the circulation of the best children's literature in the last 50 years. Granted each two years, the prize honours nowadays living writers and illustrators “judged to have made a lasting contribution to good juvenile literature by the outstanding value of [their] work”
(Glistrup, 15:2002). In the course of its history the HCA awards have frequently distinguished the work of English-speaking writers and illustrators.
And the winners are…
Bearing no animosity towards their first-rate male counterparts, we think it timely to share with you a little about these outstanding women writers who, at different times and in different “Englishes”, have made a long-lasting contribution to children's literature. Fair enough; from among fourteen awards granted by IBBY since its inception to candidates from different English-speaking scenes –including writers and artists-- 42% correspond to ladies. A bird's-eye-view will suffice to give you a picture of who these women are and the reasons for their world-wide acclaim.
Eleanor Farjeon (UK, 1881-1965) was IBBY's first recipient of the award in 1956.
The choice was inspirational. Europe confronted the post-war period, a time when there was a dire need for literary quality in children's books. Well into her sixties, Eleanor had become already a household name in her native England. The prize helped bring to the international limelight an output until then only appreciated by
an insular public. What aspects of her personality and work were unveiled as a result? First and foremost, her extraordinary gift to engage in an imaginative play that defied reality. No doubt her atypical upbringing –she pursued no formal schooling— under the guidance of private tutors allowed her and her two brothers to enjoy theatre, art, music and literature at leisure and to freely express creatively.
Her writing blends reality and fantasy and defies a specific audience categorisation.
Her first stories under the title Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (1921) were meant for adults though children quickly took them over. Similarly this kept happening to her subsequent popular stories, Martin Pippin in the Daisy-Field (1937), and later story collections, such as The Little Bookroom (1955). Her child characters are down-to-earth and sincere yet keep a penchant for the miraculous.
Popular for her poetic gift, early appreciated in Nursery Rhymes of London Towns (1916), Farjeon contributed poems for various collections and anthologies in the course of almost 50 uninterrupted years. Her humour and focus on childhood experiences make her poems timeless; thus, the universal appeal of samples such as “The Quarrel” and “Cats Sleep Everywhere”, greatly enjoyed by children even today. Probably, the international recognition bestowed to her through the HCA award helped many would-be writers to follow the advice she made public as early as 1935 “Don't ´write down´ to children; don't try to be on their level…don't be afraid of words or things you think children can't yet grasp...when you write for children be yourself” (Watson, 254:2001).
Thrice the Hans Christian Anderson international distinction fell upon American women writers. Paula Fox's lifetime achievement was eulogised by the IBBY Jury for depicting “ the in-between tones, the feelings, the perceptions and the maturation inherent in individual experiences […] in all of their actions and words, nothing is constructed, nothing presented as a lesson to teach or convert young readers […]” (Glistrup, 58:2002). Once and again in her rich output –she has recently been hailed in the UK as an outstanding writer of adult fiction as well-- her novels for children depict fictional landscapes which unveil the historical past, present-day derelict urban areas or wide open rural spaces peopled by very sensitive yet withdrawn, apparently impassive youngsters. Their maturation processes are not easy; they usually experience situations involving death, disease, and abandonment where fear, remorse or even shame prove
unavoidable hurdles before achieving individuation. In her extensive and at times controversial output, The Slave Dancer (1973), One-Eyed Cat (1983), Monkey Island (1993) and The Eagle Kite (1995) stand out as examples of “the resilience of the human spirit […] her capacity to see the child's viewpoint while feeling the sympathy of an adult and the detachment of an observer […] (Glistrup, 58:2002).
In her acceptance speech for the HCA award she strongly spoke against the false dichotomy “literature for children and literature for adults” by saying: “ […] The heart of the matter, I believe, is that the art of storytelling is, ultimately, the art of truth. In the imaginative effort that lies behind a good story, there is no difference between writing for children and for adults. And if what children have read, or have had read to them, has not condescended to them, has not given them meretricious uplift and vainglory at the expense of truthfulness, and has awakened their imaginations, they may, later, want to know about Emma Bovary and Raskolnikov. […]” (Bookbird, 1998).
Virginia Hamilton (1936-2002), granddaughter of refugee slaves, was the first (and so far only) African-American writer to gain international recognition through the HCA award in 1992. The amount and variety of books she wrote and recognition she received, make her “one of the best and the most important of children's and young adults' authors. She grew up in a family of storytellers that sought to bridge --through storytelling, reading and song-- the gap between their former enslaved condition and their newly acquired consciousness as free individuals. The oral tradition informs her fiction giving it a flavour of the past and a sense of timelessness. Her renowned The People Could Fly (1985) was the first comprehensive anthology of African-American folk tales dedicated to children.
The power of language stands out in her prose fiction enabling her to produce new meaning and ideas: “[…] Words that make Worlds are magic for me […] the miracle of words is that the language they convey can be made meaningful in terms of human desires. Language is magic; it has always been magic, since the time sorcerers uttered their incantations ad wrote their symbols which steeped our human past in marvellous myth. Oh, I am a believer in language and its magic monarchy! To bind its boundless spell to me is why I write” (Glistrup, 86:2002).
Her professed love for language enabled her to experiment with different genres, styles and thought-provoking themes. Her fictional worlds include distinctions between realism and fantasy; many stories touch upon a sort of
magic realism where young characters are endowed with magic ability to see into their own past. The diverse interplay of narrative voices she resorts to, for example in Plain City, or the way her characters talk among and to themselves in Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl (1983) have prompted critics to consider her a challenging “post-modernistic writer” (Watson, 316:2001). Perhaps the most far-reaching contribution that Hamilton has given to children's literature is expressed in her own words on the occasion of accepting the award: “ […] I do write about childhood-awareness out of my rich country experience […]. I have wanted to portray the essence of my ethnic group who are a parallel culture society in my country. ´Parallel culture´ rather than ´minority culture´ best describes the cultural diversity and equality of American ethnic communities. I have attempted to mark the history and traditions of African-Americans, a parallel culture people, through my writing, while bringing readers strong stories and memorable characters living early the best they know how” (Glistrup, 56:2002).
In 1998, Katherine Patterson closes the cycle of HCA awards to American women writers since. This is the case of an author whose rich life experience in different parts of the world helped her to develop a true understanding for young people. The daughter of missionaries, Patterson was born in China (1932) and returned to the United States when the Japanese invaded her native country.
After becoming a teacher she decided to move to Japan, worked there for a few years, then got married to a clergyman and raised four children, two of them adopted.
In tune with what she may herself have felt when finally returning to America, her literary heroines often feel a sense of ´otherness´ or isolation in their surroundings; fortunately, like herself, they manage to cope and reverse this situation, growing in experience and sensitivity as a result. Her breakthrough as writer came ten years after the publication of her first book with the notable Bridge to Terabithia (1977). This book challenged a long-standing taboo in children's literature: how children coped with death. In masterful strokes, Paterson portrays the anguish of a ten-year old boy at the death of a friend, followed by his denial and final acceptance of reality.
Paterson is well-known as author of novels set in the historical past, such as The Master Puppeteer (1976) set in feudal Japan or Jacob Have I Loved (1981) a
moving story about the jealousy of twin sisters against the backdrop of WWII or Liddy (1991), a story about the industrial oppression and women's rights, set in a New England town in 1843. In these works, she recreates settings which come alive for her readers; her characters seem to belong naturally to their surroundings. Most of the fictions that have brought her popularity among young readers usually deal with frustrations and desires common to adolescents everywhere, “misfit children, children who long for love, understanding, recognition and, most of all, want to belong to families or groups without giving up who they really are (Glistrup, 98: 2000).
Keenly aware of the need to strengthen intercultural bonds with peoples of the world, Paterson has achieved strong recognition from her social leadership in bringing together artists and editors from different parts of the world and for her efforts to promote the exchange and translation of quality fiction. As she sustains:
“When I look at the library shelves in America, I am acutely aware that so many American children's books are published that we often fail to realise our need for books from other countries –that we must give our children friends in Iran and Korea and South Africa and Serbia and Colombia and Chile and Iraq and, indeed, in every country. For when you have friends in another country, you cannot wish their nation harm” (Paterson´ acceptance speech Glistrup, 98:2000).
The Aboriginal landscape reveals its grand and sweeping physical strength and richness of myths in the magnificent fantasies of Patricia Wrightson, Australia's leading children's writer who obtained the HCA award in 1986. Born in the rural town of Lismore, NSW set between the rainforests and the sea, Wrightson absorbed since childhood the magic peculiar to her land. In her preface to An Older Kind of Magic (1972) she says: “It is time we stopped trying to see elves and dragons and unicorns in Australia. They have never belonged her, and no ingenuity can make them real. We need to look for another kind of magic, a kind that must have been shaped by the land itself at the edge of the Australian vision” (Hunt, 331:1995). She delved into Aussie's folkloric records to look for Australia's “own natural beings, born of the grey scrub and red desert, the hard bright light ad chalky shadows” (Glistrup, 74:2000). In the “dreaming stories” typical of the bush land, she encountered rich materials which she wrought into tales of epic proportions. Her outstanding trilogy The Song of Wirrun (including The Ice is Coming; The Dark Water Behind; Behind the Wind, 1987) is the saga of a young
Aboriginal, Wirrun, whose quest is to save his country from destruction. In his plight he confronts evil and death, and becomes a mythical figure at the end of his journey.
In her succeeding stories she extends the theme of man and his close relationship to the environment to include further conflicts, such as environmental damage, or the confrontations of modern man versus the Aboriginal. Her body of work is believed to have enriched children's literature worldwide; her contribution
“ […] a channel by which children in her own and other countries have learned the beauty and dignity of the legendary creatures of Aborigine mythology”
(www.bookrags.com).
In her HCA award acceptance speech she comments on the circumstance that made her and other colleagues working in her lifetime, trail-blazers in the field of children's literature: “[…] we had no paths to follow […] thirty years ago we were still exploring […] Australian writers, with so small a body of work behind them, could feel that the country's literature was immediately in their hands. Every story that anyone could conceive was his (sic) own new concept, not shaped or directed or limited by other people's thinking; to be worked out in his (sic) own way and for almost the first time […]” (Bookbird, 1998).
In 2006 Margaret Mahy is distinguished with the HCA award for being the most representative author for children of her native New Zealand. The jury's laudation reads: “the jury has recognized one of the world's most original re-inventers of language. Mahy's language is rich in poetic imagery, magic, and supernatural elements. Her oeuvre provides a vast, numinous, but intensely personal metaphorical arena for the expression and experience of childhood and adolescence. Equally important, however, are her rhymes and poems for children.
Mahy's works are known to children and young adults all over the world”
(http://www.ibby.org/). Born in 1936, Mahy is a prolific Kiwi --she's published around 150 titles that span genres and ages.
As a young librarian in Christchurch, her archetypical stories peopled by witches, pirates and wizards ran counter to the interests of local publishers, more interested in stories that stressed national identity. These pieces found an ideal niche in the School Journal, a school publication distributed to school children.
Through an exhibition of these “journals” abroad, Mahy's work became known among publishers in the U.S. and U.K. This marked the starting point of a fruitful
international publishing career which later brought her twice the Carnegie Medal for her adolescent fiction. Reality, fantasy, and a quirky sense of humour blend in her picture and adventure books for children, such as for example, A Lion in the Meadow ( 1969), The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate (1972).
In her fiction for adolescents and older readers, Mahy usually explores serious topics of appeal to mature readers, such as parental abandonment, jealousy, self- deception, mental illness and accidental death. Though her settings are familiar and domestic, characters develop in psychological ambiances which blur chronological time and are peopled by supernatural beings who usually represent their personal fears or insecurities. This is the case of novels such as the The Haunting (1982); Memory (1987); Maddigan's Fantasia (2005); or Portable Ghosts (2006).
Recurrently, the tensions that characters feel seem to arise from the constraints of everyday living they are subjected to and their inner demands for imaginative freedom. Mahy herself explains the reasons why the interplay reality- fantasy comes to our rescue:
“Story and fantasy have many functions in our lives, but one of the functions is to mediate between us and naked existence, to nudge us back into a state of astonishment from which we can also easily retreat, as well as providing places to stand, strong places in an overwhelming world. And when, ushered by no matter what sort of force from outside, we fall into the cracks in the structure, we immediately start to compose stories to bridge the crack or fill it in so we can walk out of safely” (in E. Hale & F. Winters, 2005)
Summing up, when considering the international recognition achieved by these women we cannot but conclude that they have gone far beyond their “own rooms” and, in so doing, have kept alive for XXI century youngsters the promise of a
“green light to stir by at the end of the tunnel” --dream that Jella Jepson made possible through IBBY.
Notes:
?Excerpts from authors´ work read during the oral presentation of this paper have not been included given the word limit set for publication.
?The authors wish to thank Forest Zhang, Deputy Director of Administration, IBBY, for access to photocopied material on authors Fox and Hamilton´s acceptance speeches.
References
Fox, P, 1998. Acceptance Speech – 1978 H.C.A. Author´s Medal. Bookbird A Journal of International Children´s Literature, 4 (1998).
Hale, E. and S. Winters (2005): Marvellous Codes, The Fiction of Margaret Mahy, Victoria University Press.
Hunt, P. (1995): Children's Literature, An Illustrated History, Oxford University Press.
Glistrup, E. (2002): The Hans Christian Andersen Awards, 1956-2002, International Board of Books for Young People.
Hamilton, V, 1992. Hans Christian Andersen Acceptance Speech. International Board of Books for Young People, Proceedings (1992).
Watson, V. (2001): The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English, Cambridge University Press.