Children’s Literature on the Move: Nations, Translations, Migrations ed. by Nora Maguire and Beth Rodgers (review)

In Children’s Literature on the Move: Nations, Translations, Migrations, Nora Maguire and Beth Rodgers have compiled essays on children’s literature from various parts of the world in order “to explore the various roles played by children’s literature within the processes of creating and contesting notions of collective identity and belonging” (9). By examining how children’s literature from other parts of the world negotiate nation, globalisation, and post-nationality, Maguire and Rodgers wish to engage in “promoting and progressing children’s literature in Ireland” (9).

Maguire and Rodgers have divided the book into three sections. The first section examines case studies of children’s literature in Turkey, Estonia, and Britain in order to show how children’s literature is complicit in creating a homogeneous national identity. Deniz Arzuk and Mari Nari both argue that language was used to re-imagine Turkey and Estonia, respectively. While in Turkey children of the elite were taught to artificially view the country as an “homogeneous nation” (23), songs in Estonian fantasy fiction “were rooted in the Estonian language and they … exclude[d] the Russian community present in Estonia” (43). The ability children’s literature has to create myths also applies to Ireland. In the second section, Celia Keenan claims that false assumptions of the origins of the Old Irish poem “Pangur Ban” are based on a desire to create a national identity untainted by foreigners. It is evident in these four articles that exclusionary politics structure the literary process of nation building. Moreover, they also show how such literature can be insidious as it moulds young readers into child citizens based on the specific socio-historical needs of the countries.

In sections two and three, the editors offer articles that discuss new ways of configuring the nation through transcultural children’s literature. Valerie Coghlan, Cliona O Gallchoir, and Ruth Scales propose that such literatures offer a solution to the problem of homogeneity by creating an identity that expands beyond the borders of the country of origin. Characters are often depicted as embodying a liminal position where they struggle with the loss of their home and attempt to find a sense of belonging. Ultimately, multi-culturalism or living in double cultures is advantageous. For instance, Coghlan asserts that works of emigrant Siobhan Dowd are productive as they provide a social commentary of Ireland’s shortcomings and “challenge the sentimentality underlying the nostalgic view of Ireland” (99). Scales proposes that Algerian-French writer Faïza Guène helps to rewrite the dominant racialized representations of the working-class Algerian community in France, and empower the Algerian-French youth. Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak highlights how authors have used fairy tales and graphic memoirs to discuss “individual stances on historical events” in opposition to official reports on Polish history. This strategy is advantageous as it has ensured a “multiplicity of interpretations” (137). Deszcz-Tryhubczak elaborates that these texts have led to the rise of games and websites, which enable children to move beyond rote-learning to become active participants of history and identity formation.

In order to promote access to children’s literature from around the world, the book proposes the need for translation. According to Caoimhe Nic Lochlainn, translated texts have often gone through a process of excessive domestication in Ireland. This act of appropriation is unfavourable because it prevents children from learning about the rest of the world and reinforces “insularity in Irish Gaelic literature” (86). In more recent years, Siobhán Parkinson has used her publishing company—little Island—to publish translated works. She claims that her firm resists domestication:

We do not set out to localize the books we translate, or to erase the markers of the originating culture. On the contrary, we encourage translators to leave personal and place names in the original language, for example, so that readers are aware that they are reading a book that was written...