Kriegs- und Nachkriegskindheiten. Studien zur literarischen Erinnerungskultur für junge Leser [War and postwar childhoods. Studies on the literary memorial culture for young readers] (review)
- Kriegs- und Nachkriegskindheiten. Studien zur literarischen Erinnerungskultur für junge Leser [War and postwar childhoods. Studies on the literary memorial culture for young readers]
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The rupture of civilisation caused by World War II and its devastating effects on individuals, families, various social groups, and different nations have played an important role in literature dedicated to working [End Page 54] through the past for several decades now. Scholars from Europe, Asia, and the United States came together at an international conference in 2005 to determine the place of literature for children and young adults within this memorial culture. This volume unites their contributions as well as a few commissioned articles and proposes a sort of topography of children’s books working through one of the most difficult chapters of contemporary history. Divided into six sections by countries, the essays present the different national, medial, socio-political, and literary contexts.
As widely as the national perspectives on this time may vary, all works for children and young adults on the topic share the same dilemma: What should children be exposed to? How much violence and reality are pedagogically viable? Many works betray the challenge of constructing a story that is both sensitive and complex, that does not resort to myths of resistance or political innocence and that does not over-simplify history. The literary works thus often reflect societies’ struggles to negotiate their relationships to this past.
It would probably have been sufficient to limit the volume to the period of World War II, especially since the postwar period is only addressed in very few articles. In any case, the highly commendable conference proceedings certainly make the case that the topic has much potential. Apart from informing the reader about the various national ways of working through the past, the volume leaves us with one important insight: To this day, we are grappling with the problem of how to transmit the events of this time period to young and adolescent readers.
