Raising the Iron Curtain

In a brief Foreword to this bibliography, Anne Pellowski has written:

It is good to have this bibliography to indicate what has been published for children that reflects the lives and culture of immigrants from the East European countries.

Povsic illuminates that point further, stating in the Preface how important it is for American children to learn about other cultures through books of all kinds: historical fiction, folktales, realistic fiction. Only through such knowledge and an understanding of others can there be a hope for world peace and international cooperation. Povsic mentions the various people and organizations working hard to promote internationalism (Jella Lepman, founder of the International Youth Library in Munich; IBBY; UNESCO; etc), and she gives her own childhood reactions to certain books which left indelible marks on her and led her to the conclusion that books can play a major role in influencing other children "to understand better, to feel more deeply, and to respond with tolerance, good will, and compassion."

The rather brief Introduction presents the scope, criteria, and methodology of the book. She points out that the omission of the U.S.S.R. and some of the surrounding countries is intentional; they will be covered in another volume currently in preparation. Moreover, the books listed include those that "reflect the lives of East European immigrants in the United States as well as the lives of these peoples in their homelands." Seven countries are represented: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, and Yugoslavia. Some books were originally written in another language and translated into English; others were in English from the start. There are 315 entries. Povsic makes one major requirement for selection: "All books were read, but not all that were read were selected. They were excluded if they did not fit the acceptable literary standards of their genres." The exception to that rule is the inclusion of a book which "could be valuable in other respects." Furthermore, these are books from the twentieth century only. Three indexes (author, translator, illustrator; title; subject) make an individual entry easy to locate.

The bibliographies include traditional literature (both collections and single editions), historical fiction (except for Albania), biography and autobiography, and other fiction. Each entry contains the number of pages in the book and its grade level in addition to the standard bibliographical information. The annotations are lively and clearly descriptive of both text and illustrations; awards, author's notes and any other pertinent information about each book are also included. If a book has faults, those are noted, too.

The subject matter is wide-ranging, from the traditional folktales to a biography of Martina Navratilova (#051) published in 1977. Familiar United States authors appear: Esther Hautzig, Monica Shannon, Kate Seredy, Anne Pellowski, and others, along with numerous writers from other countries. Isaac Bashevis Singer's many works are cited, and subjects range from mysteries and adventure, to life as a serf, to animal stories, to poetry on a variety of themes, to village life, to city youth gangs. There is something here for everyone.

With such a bibliography it is difficult to know how much is not included unless one happens to be an expert on a particular country or in internationalism in children's books. My own three semester visits to Warsaw, Poland, led me to the Museum of Children's Literature and their card catalogue of translations from Polish into English. Included there were some books not found in the Povsic volume, one of them illustrated by Alvin Tresselt: A Sparrow's Magic, by Maria Niklewiczowa, first published in 1956 and reissued in 1970. Perhaps it did not sufficiently reflect the culture or meet the literary requirements Povsic had established. Another book from the fifties not in the bibliography was Squirrel Redcoat by Jadwiga Wernerowa, illustrated by Maria Paczyńska.

Povsic's book is a welcome addition to the growing number of bibliographies appearing in the field of children's literature. It is especially important today because of the continual stress and suspicion that exists...