Een land van waan en wijs: Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse jeugdliteratuur ed. by Rita Ghesquière, Vanessa Joosen, Helma van Lierop-Debrauwer (review)

At the end of the 1980s, De hele Bibelebontse berg: De geschiedenis van het kinderboek in Nederland & Vlaanderen van de middeleeuwen tot heden (The History of Children’s Literature in the Netherlands and Flandern from the Middle Ages to the Present) was published. For years, this book functioned as the most important reference book for the history of Dutch children’s literature. Exactly twenty-five years later, a new reference work was published. This book tries to respond to the critique on De hele Bibelebontse berg and aims to do justice to recent studies on historical developments in Dutch children’s literature.

The title of the new Dutch children’s literature history, A Land of Wisdom and Illusion, is intriguing and is derived from the perhaps best-known book by the famous Dutch children’s author Paul Biegel, De kleine kapitein (The Little Captain), which was published in 1970. In the introduction to the new history, the editors explain that “illusion” has a dual meaning, a positive and a more negative one. On the one hand, it refers to the many “fantasy stories that stimulate the imagination of young readers and that take them to far and fascinating worlds”; on the other hand, it relates to authors who write books led by the issues of the day to gain easy commercial success. “Wisdom” points to stories that offer children and young people a recognizable world while subtly broadening these readers’ horizon and stimulating reflection.

One of the main points of critique on De hele Bibelebontse berg was that it had no theoretical foundation and that the editors did not account for the selection of authors and illustrators. Een land van waan en wijs obviously wants to counter this critique by paying ample attention to the theoretical framework and its premises. One of these premises is that a history of children’s literature can only be written within a broader societal and cultural context. Another one is that Dutch children’s literature is not an island. This means that not only children’s literature from the Netherlands, Flanders, and Friesland (a Dutch province with a language and children’s literature of its own) should be discussed but also the influence from foreign children’s literature on Dutch children’s books and vice versa.

The first chapter situates the history of Dutch children’s literature in the context of philosophical, pedagogical, and societal views on children and children’s literature and describes the main developments in the children’s book market. Following this historical overview, the book is structured on the basis of the main genres in children’s literature—such as fiction for boys and girls, picture books, historical children’s books, fantasy, adolescent literature, and philosophical and religious children’s books. The chapters, written by different experts on Dutch children’s literature, show that each genre has its own origin and pace of development. Some genres have a long history, even going back to the Middle Ages; other genres (for example, adolescent literature) are relatively young, although they have some precursors. One of the possible pitfalls of a genre structure is that no absolute distinction can be made between some genres, so that there is the risk of overlap between chapters. However, the authors have been very conscious of this risk and make cross references where necessary and possible. Of course, some authors or illustrators are mentioned more than once, but that is because of the diversity of their work.

In almost all chapters, the genres are discussed in relation to developments in the history of mainstream literature, not seldom because they are indicative for developments in children’s literature. Pedagogical and societal influences, which are discussed in...