Écrire et traduire pour les enfants : voix, images et mots. [Writing and Translating for Children: voices, images and texts] (review)

This work, coordinated by three Italian university researchers from Bologna and Macerata, regroups contributions in French, Italian and English on the subject of writing and translating for children. The volume is divided into three parts. For the purpose of clarity, I will honor this distinction, even though they are closely interconnected.

The first section is mainly dedicated to matters related to writing for children and young adults. The contributors (who include Jean Perrot and Jean Foucault) comment on how particular children's books circulate from one country to another—whether or not they have been translated—and how this affects writing for children in the different countries. In the course of the discussion, the authors address the issue of adaptation. More specifically, adaptation is discussed in relation to adjusting the work to the youngsters' reading competences, erasing certain culturally specific items and reinforcing a personal point of view, as in the case of Collodi, the translator of Perrault's Tales from Mother Goose and the stories of Madame d'Aulnoy and Madame Leprince de Beaumont.

The second section is concerned with Translation Studies. Roberta Pederzoli, a specialist in this subject, reminds us that much of the evolution of research in the field of literary translation draws on studies of translations of works for children. These works have allowed critics to set out and clarify a number of problematic issues. These include: 1) How to translate pictures books and how to take into account the "iconic speech"? 2) How should culturally specific items be translated? 3) The place of the adult translator's voice in a text for young readers 4) How can we find a balance between literary perspectives and educational perspectives?

The third section tackles the translation of audio-visual materials for children, for both the small and big screens. This largely unrecognised discipline has already become an important research subject for young researchers, as they address a variety of topics including film dubbing for children. Dubbing raises matters such as the context of reception (both linguistic and cultural) and the multiple functions of the audio-visual text (to amuse, educate, inform and socialize children). The never-ending debate on whether it is better to dub or use sub-titles when showing foreign works on television takes on new life when the viewers are children. This third part offers plenty of food for thought.

A great number of classics from French, Italian, English and German children's literature are revisited in these 343 pages. The result is a stimulating volume that offers valuable insight into these milestones in classical European Children's Literature.