2000

AK -- Varia

In 1998 the library of Oldenburg University presented its annual children's literature exhibit on the theme of Jewish children's books, using items from the library collections, the Children's Museum of Marburg, and other libraries. This generously illustrated catalog includes contributions by 24 authors on topics relating to the life and literature of German-Jewish children from the mid-18th century to the Nazi period from a variety of perspectives (e.g., personal, literary, and historical). The focus in the volume is on books that address Jewish orthodoxy. Accordingly, not all the authors included are Jewish; and Jewish authors of children's books without a focus on Jewish life are omitted. The extensive bibliographic section lists 422 annotated entries divided into twelve subject groupings and includes an author and title index (which, unfortunately, is not true of the essay section).

The catalog is a good complement to the comprehensive bibliography Deutsch-jüdische Kinder- und Jugendliteratur von der Haskala bis 1945 (1996). [hew/sl]
 
 

Struwwelpeter and Max und Moritz, two of the most popular and successful German children's books, were not only widely read but also widely imitated. This comprehensive bibliography documents this special and popular form of picture book for children, listing adaptations, imitations, and parodies. Depicting disobedient children, their function was pedagogical--they were supposed to terrify children into obedience--but they also had the effect of entertaining them with the mischief they depicted.

The two stories characterize distinct types of problems: Struwwelpeter stories emphasize the depiction of childish mistakes and vices, whose punishment arises out of the offence itself or is undertaken by adults. Max and Moritz stories tell of a more serious level of misbehavior, motivated by arrogance or malice, and punished by the victim's vengeance, by the consequences of the prank, or by third parties, e.g., state and society (often the police).

The clear differentiation between the stories makes it possible to enumerate their successors separately. For Struwwelpeter, this bibliography presents a classified listing of 1,577 works published world-wide (also including anthologized stories, children's supplements to newspapers, satirical magazines, etc.). Because editions published through duration of the copyright--the 539th edition, 1925--will be covered in a forthcoming bibliography by Ute Liebert, Struwwelpeter's early bibliographic history is only sketched in this volume. Similarly, translations are not included, because they will be addressed by another bibliography, by Walter Sauer. The Max und Moritz section encompasses 2,208 titles, also omitting original editions (for which Ute Liebert has already published a bibliography) and translations (listed in a bibliography by Manfred Görlach).

Compiled by a collector for collectors, this work is a gold mine of information on authors, illustrators, and publishers of children's books. Its bibliographies of secondary works are small and specialized; important bibliographic references are found only in the annotations. Nonetheless, because it includes holdings information and many illustrative examples, this is an exemplary bibliography. [hew/sl]
 
 

This excellent bibliography lists the older part (910 titles) of a 25,000-volume collection founded in 1879: 32 titles from the 16th century, over 100 from the 17th century, and the remainder from the 18th and 19th centuries up to 1834. A cross section of French, and some German, publications is covered. By the estimate of the author they constitute one-fifth of the books of this genre that appeared during the period in question.

Titles are ordered alphabetically by title, with full bibliographic and physical descriptions, a short summary of the contents, and bibliographical references. There are eight indexes. These include titles, illustrators and engravers, publishers and printers, place of publication, and two indexes of names: for persons mentioned in the front matters, and for persons identified as prize recipients or on an Ex libris plate. A subject index organized around 37 main subjects follows. Finally, there is an index of authors accompanied by short biographies and bibliographies of their works.

A chronological listing is lacking, and the numbering system betrays some inconsistencies. There are nearly 70 illustrations. Related publications include Paul Gavrault's Les Livres de l'Enfance du XVe au XIXe Siècle. (Paris, 1930; reprinted in 1967 and 1985); Laura Noesser's Fonds Anciens de littérature pour la jeunesse (Paris, 1987); and Annie Renonciat's Livre, Mon Ami: Lectures Enfantines 1914-1954 (Paris, 1991). [hew/jpn]
 
 

Janosch (pseudonym for Horst Eckert) is probably the most successful book illustrator today; 150 picture books have appeared since 1960 with his texts and illustrations. This catalog accompanied a 1998 exhibition that appeared at six locations. It includes nine articles by experts on children's books and illustration, including Jens Thiele, Horst Künnemann, Werner Timm, Bernd Dolle-Weinkauf, and Corola Pohlmann. There is coverage of illustrations for books, posters, calendars, t-shirts, and toothbrushes, and also examples of the use of Janosch's art on toys and other products.

There is a bibliography of 386 book editions, including 150 for children, that Feuß calls "an attempt at a nearly complete Janosch bibliography." The bibliography has a main chronological listing, including later editions, followed by a listing of foreign editions. Unfortunately, there is no indication of pagination or numbers of editions, and there is no title index. Shorter sections of the bibliography list texts written for other illustrators, illustrations for other authors, books for adults, "Janosch on Janosch," and a short biography. Fifty illustrations, mostly in color, give a good impression of Janosch's work as an illustrator. [hew/jpn]
 
 

This work presents 534 books for children and youth from 65 countries on 1,235 double-column pages. "Classics" are defined as works that played a prominent role in the children's literature of a country or language and were remarkable for their literary quality. Literary quality is defined in terms of eight criteria, of which three are required for a work to be included. The listed works include 79 from Great Britain, 57 from the USA, 42 from Russia, and 29 from Germany.

Each entry provides a biography of the book's author, and prizes received, bibliographic information, contents, detailed publication history including adaptations, significance of the work, and its reception. The editor indicates she has resisted a temptation to apply European/North American aesthetic criteria in deciding what to include, and she has excluded picture books because of a lack of space. But the decisions about what to include or exclude are not consistent or convincing in some cases, perhaps inevitably, as determining whether three qualitative criteria have been satisfied is clearly subjective.

Despite its limitations, this work fills a major gap and provides coverage not available in other publications. There is an extensive scholarly introduction, and the end matter substantially increases this title's usefulness with a bibliography, listings by country, and indexes for titles and authors. [hew/jpn]
 
 

This dictionary provides brief biographies of approximately 200 Russian and Soviet illustrators of children's books, many of whom fled to Paris in the twenties and thirties and found work with French publishing companies. The names of the illustrators are given both in French transcription and in the original Cyrillic script, but are alphabetized according to the French versions. Each entry includes not only information concerning the illustrator's life and career, but also some of the titles of books the person illustrated, together with at least two--and often numerous--sample illustrations (unfortunately, only in black-and-white and of poor quality). There is a name index, an index of the places of publication (regrettably St. Petersburg/Leningrad, Moscow, and Paris are omitted), and a language index (only the languages of the former Soviet Union and Hebrew are included). A comparison with a 1989 Zürich exhibit catalog (War es--war es nicht? Folklore und Sachlichkeit im russischen und sovjetischen Kinderbuch seit 1900 [Was it, or Wasn't it? Folklore and Realism in Russian and Soviet Children's Books since 1900]) suggests that some illustrators have been overlooked. Nevertheless this is a very useful work, not only because of the significant artistic content of these books and the important role that Paris played in the history of Russian children's literature, but also because biographical information concerning these illustrators is otherwise difficult to find. [hew/ldl]
 
 

This bibliography, compiled annually by the German Poland-Institute, is a revised summary of the series of bibliographies entitled "Polish Literature in German Translation," which have appeared in the Institute's yearbook. The long span of time covered by this cumulative bibliography is very welcome, given the difficulty of searching the individual issues from which it is compiled. In terms of coverage, the present volume picks up where the previous German Poland-Institute bibliography, covering translations up to 1985, left off. All in all, this particular title and a similar one by Ingrid Kuhnke, Polnische schöne Literatur in deutscher Übersetzung 1900-1992/93 [Polish Literary Works in German Translation, 1900-1992/93], published in 1995, provide excellent bibliographic access to translations of Polish literature into German. [sh/fcms]
 
 

The first issue of the index of available German translations of Portuguese literature was published on the occasion of the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1997, at which Portugal was the featured nation. With a cutoff date of May 2000, the second edition lists 139 individual translations (omitting anthologies), of which 24 are new publications by writers who have been part of the alphabetical index of authors since 1997. Brief biographical information, a few small photographic portraits, and short summaries are provided. This is followed by a section on anthologies, as well as selected titles in the categories of secondary literature, journals, books on Portugal, and literary Portugal. Next is an index of literature from Africa (Angola, Cabo Verde, Mozambique) with categories comparable to those in the main part of the volume. Brazilian literature in German translation is not represented in this volume, because it and the works of other Latin American countries are covered by Klaus Küppers's Bücher zu Lateinamerika.

This small bibliography was published by the Frankfurt publishing house, Teo Ferrer de Mesquita (TFM), one of the few German publishing houses specializing in this category of literature. TFM also operates a mail order business dealing in books and records in Portuguese. [sh/fcms]