SUMMARY

To declare that Childrenʼs Literature is an important, meaningfull, interesting and quite complex field of culture is almost the šame as to try to prove an axiom, isnʼt it? But not evcrybody in Lithuania believes this. To bridge this gap four years ago a magazine „Rubinaitis“ was launched. This is the tenth isue of the magazine wich marks an important period in the development of the magazine. Its present structure is a result of a number colleagues working in childrenʼs literature.

In the first artiele „Love to mother in the Lithuanian poetry for children“ Gražina Skabeikytė comes to the conclusion, that many short poems about mother do not teach a child how to love mother, but mainly produce a poetic, elavated, ideal portrait of mother. This manner of portraing resembles the adoration of sanetity in the archaic culture, the archetypal tradition of ritual. Almost every poem of this theme is intended for recitation during public celebrations, of family holidays.

Some years ago an exile ex-pat Lithuanian writer Kazys Almenas launched the series of historical fietion for young adults. „Skomantas“ was the collective pen name of the authors as well as the title of the series. Recently there are twelve books in the series deseribing the 13th century events in Lithuania. Giedrius Viliūnas in his artiele „The Crown for Knight Skomantas“ discusses the values of the series and statės the books are intereting to read and gives important information for young readers.

Vita Mozūraiteʼs artiele „The Secret Mother Goose“ introduces with the genesis, history and peculiarities of the famous Nursery Rhymes. Very few Lithuanians knew about it, only this year about 50 rhymes were published in Lithuania (translated by Violeta Palčinskaitė).

Four publications are devoted to the 140th birth anniversary of Selma Lagerlöf. The first is the Authorʼs Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Maria Nikolajevą discusses the structure and the moral and artistic values of The wonderful Adventures of Nils, Aiste Urboniene analyses the relationship between Father and Daughter in The Emperor of Portugal, and Dalia Čiočyte presents the Christ Legends by Lagerlöf.

Some more „Swedish“ publications one can find in this issue. There are an introduetion with SBI (Svenska Barnboksinstitutet), a short story „The Day of exams“ by Margareta Strömstedt, a review on the new translation of Lindgren novel Rasmus, Pontus och Toker and a review on Linnea in Monetʼs Garden by Björk and Anderson.

The outstanding expert on the Lithuanian childrenʼs literature Vincas Auryla celebrates his 75th birth anniversary. He refleets some facts of his childhood, tells about his first books, and the main facts of biografy. (The caption „Books of My Childhood“ has been prepared by our regular contributor Elona Varnauskienė.)

In the section „Anniversary“ Lionginas Šepkus writes about a modern author Mykolas Sluckis and his works for children. The article is devoted to the authorʼs 70th birthday. Margarita Varlašinaʼs article commemorates Leo Tolstoyʼs 140th anniversary.

The „Bibliography“ section offers a list of all publications of the „Rubinaitis“ (Number 1 to 10) and a list of childrenʼs authorʼs anniversaries in the year 1999.

 Žurnalas „Rubinaitis“, 1998 Nr. 3 (10)