Summary

The sixth issue of “Rubinaitis” opens with a message by the Slovenian poet Boris A. Novak to commemorate International Childrenʼs Day. In 1997 this holiday will be celebrated in Lithuania for the fifth time.

The first section is called “At a Closer Look”. It offers an analysis of six major pieces of childrenʼs literature published in l996.

In his article “Faithful to the Genre of the Fairy-Tale”, Romualdas Skunčikas reviews “Tiputapė”, a humourous fantastic story by the well-known Lithuanian author Vytautė Žilinskaitė. Skillful at the fable genre, the author tells a story of a mice community which for 50 (!) years has been ruled by rats. She employs allegory to tackle moral issues of the end of the 20th century: strife for power, career-mindedness and corruption. Not incidentally, the main character is called “Tiputapė”, a word which phonetically is similar to “deputatė”, the Lithuanian word for “female member of parliament”. Skunčikas believes that character development is the main strength of Žilinskaitėʼs story.

Vilma Kaladytė, a young literary critic, in her paper “Conversations About the Present” reviews “A Slipper”, a novel by the well-known Lithuanian prose writer Vytautas Račickas. The story reveals the problems of the disintegrating family and the fate of the child in such a family. The review focuses on the geanrical peculiarities of the piece and identifies elements of the detective and adventure story, such as the dynamism of the narrative, the suspense, the unexpected, the incidental and the inevitable. However, the critic points out that despite these elements, it is not a detective story, but rather a psychological novel.

“What are a catʼs whiskerʼs for?” is a new book for children by Leonardas Gutauskas, a renowned painter and poet. It is a conversation between a grandfather and a grandson about the making of the world, the human condition and death. The geanres of poetry, prose and drama integrate well in the book. Literary scholar Gražina Skabeikytė analyses the manner in which an old person passes his experience on to a young child by giving answers to the childʼs spontaneous questions. It is an extraordinary book in that it is very poetic and that it carries a philosophical mesage. The main idea of the book found its reflection in the title of Skabeikytėʼs article “The World is One for Al!”.

Childrenʼs issues are often radical issues, and radical issues are always philosophical”, claims Leonarda Jakentaitė, doctor of philosophy who in her article “To Bow Before an Intelligent Ouestion” introduces a book by the Nonvegian author Jostein Gaarder called “Hey! Is There Anybody in Here?”. Well-known to the international reader, the book was only published in Lithuanian last year.

“The Secret Garden” is another classic piece by Frances Hodgson Burnett, which has only recently become available to the Lithuanian reader. In her article “The Secret of Growing”, Nijolė Daujotytė reveals the essence of the book – the secret and the miracle, and miracle only happens in people when they communicate with each other and with the natural world.

The German author Otfried Preussler is famliar to the Lithuanian reader, however, in his newly translated book “Krabat” we see a different Preussler, maintains Rūta Kumžienė in her article “Death and Love in the Mill of the Marshes”. She finds that this book has more than an ordinary childrenʼs book, it has the atmosphere of sadness and melancholy and death.

Three papers in the present issue are related to the International Research Society for Childrenʼs Literature. Two are by Maria Nikolajeva, president of IRSCL. In her first paper, she introduces the structure, the objectives and the activities of the organisation. In her second paper “Do We Know What We Are Doing?”, she considers the current trends in the theory of childrenʼs literature and the changes in the attitudes towards the status of childrenʼs literature. The third paper is the article called “Class Struggle From Two Points of View” by the Swedish journalist Per Jonnson, where he reviews a few major reports given at the 12th IRSCL congress among which is a report by the Lithuanian scholar Vincas Auryla.

In the section “Anniversaries”, Jonas Linkevičius and Irena Klimašauskienė discuss the contribution to childrenʼs literature of the poet Vytė Nemunėlis (Bernardas Brazdžionis) who is going to celebrate his 90th anniversary and the writer Vladas Dautartas who is going to observe his 70th birthday this year.

The traditional caption “Books of My Childhood” carries an interview with professor Vanda Zaborskaitė, a distinguished literary scholar who has never taken a special interest in childrenʼs literature, but who has cherished her childhood memories of the reading experience. “From the Books of My Childhood – to a Life With the Book” is the title of the paper by the journalist Elona Varanauskienė. Zaborskaitė learned to read at an early age as she had no grandparents to tell her fairy-tales or to sing her folk songs. Among her treasured childhood readings are tales by Andersen and Brothers Grimms, “Struwelpeter” by Hoffman, “Uncle Tomʼs Cabin” by Beecher Stowe and “Robinson Crusoe” by Defoe. “You can never at any period in your life relive the experience of childhood reading, and I have never tried to reread either Uncle Tom or Winnetou. I believe that childrenʼs literature communicates messages adressed to a certain age group with its psychological characteristics, interests and needs. Not every piece of childrenʼs literature meets the principles of good fiction writing, however, the emotional growth that one undergoes when reading, say, “The Prince and the Pauper” is invaluable. Childʼs involvement, experience and understanding should be key criteria”, maintains Zaborskaitė.

The “Bibliography” section offers a list of all books for children and articles on childrenʼs literature and reading, published in Lithuania in 1996. These publications have been carefully recorded by Roma Kišūnaitė.

Translated by Nida Burneikaitė

 Žurnalas „Rubinaitis“, 1997 Nr. 1 (6)