CB - Education- 2003

2003

CB -- Education

Fibel-Findbuch: “Fi-Fi”: deutschsprachige Fibeln von den Anfängen bis 1944: eine Bibliographie [ABC Readers: German-Language Primers from their Beginnings to 1944: A Bibliography]. Gisela Teistler. Osnabrück: Wenner, 2003. 623, 32 p. ill. 26 cm. (Bibliographien des Antiquariats H. Th. Wenner, 5). ISBN 3-87898-382-4: EUR 196 [03-1-218]

Primers, or first reading books for schoolchildren, are one of those literary genres especially prone to obsolescence, because such materials are often discarded as soon as they have served their purpose. They tend to share this fate with other children’s books and thus are often to be found listed together with them in the catalogs of second-hand book dealers, auctions, and collectors. The author of this bibliography is particularly well qualified for the mammoth task of compiling the many German-language primers in existence, because of her extensive work with the Georg-Eckert-Institut für Internationale Schulbuchforschung [Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research] (the Institute owns one of the largest collections of “Fibeln” in German libraries, more than 1,500 volumes). She has previously edited the Bestandskatalog der deutschen Schulbücher im Georg-Eckert-Institut erschienen bis 1945 [Catalog of German Textbooks to 1945 Held in the Georg Eckert Institute] (see RREA 8:196). The Fibel-Findbuch references 12,500 entries, of which 2,740 are first editions; Teistler claims they represent 90% of all the German primer publications in existence from the period covered. Sources for her entries were second-hand bookstore and auction catalogs, as well as secondary literature. The bibliography has no fewer than 10 indexes, which allow excellent access to the subject matter. This work will be a boon to researchers in this specialized area of pedagogy. [sh/akb]

Next Section
Previous Section
Table of Contents