SUMMARY

The Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania has declared 2022 as the Year of Animal Welfare. Rubinaitis also supports this meaningful initiative – it takes a closer look at the depiction of animals in children’s literature. Animals as literary characters are discussed in one way or another in most of the publications in this issue. Džiuljeta Maskuliūnienė, the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine, writes about this in more detail in the preface of the magazine “When Growing together with Books and Animals”. The speech “The Book is Peace” by the poet Dainius Gintalas, delivered on the 2nd of April of this year after he had been awarded the prize of Pranas Mašiotas, has been published in this issue as well. In this issue, the valuable bibliographic lists compiled by Roma Kišūnaitė have been presented differently – “Children’s and Adolescents’ Books of the Year 2021”, “On Children’s Literature and Reading in 2021”. A new QR code technology is used for this purpose. Also, three reviews of Lithuanian children’s books published in 2021 have been presented. Kristina Vaisvalavičienė discusses the particularities of cognitive books for children and adolescents, published in 2021, in Lithuania, Inga Mitunevičiūtė discusses the most important translations of children’s books into Lithuanian, and Dalia Karatajienė reviews tendencies of illustrations in Lithuanian children’s books as well as the most successful works of illustrators. Photos of Lithuanian writers Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas, Jonas Avyžius and Emilija Liegutė together with their pet dogs are published in the rubric “Photos Tell”. The rubric “Anniversaries” is especially rich in its content. Two articles written by Džiuljeta Maskuliūnienė and Inga Mitunevičiūtė dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the famous Lithuanian writer Jonas Avyžius are published in this rubric. Gražina Skabeikytė-Kazlauskienė in her article “Two Portraits of Children’s Poets” analyses the poems of Paulina Žemgulytė and Vladas Braziūnas in this rubric as well. The rubric “Retro” reveals the legendary children’s magazine Genys, where Selemonas Paltanavičius’ short story “Vaikai, lapė ir vilkas” (Children, the Fox and the Wolf) has been published again. The material of the latter rubric was prepared by Reda Tamulienė. Kristina Vaisvalavičienė’s article about the popular children’s magazine dedicated to nature, Lututė, which has been circulating in Lithuania for 27 years, is published in the new rubric “The Contexts”. Kastytis Zubovas, an astrophysicist and the president of the club “Tolkien Lithuania”, answers the questions given by Asta Skujytė-Razmienė in the traditional rubric “The Readings of My Childhood”. Urtė Šulskienė interviews a schoolboy Rojus Termenas about his reading habits in another new rubric “I Read a Lot”. A chronicle of children’s literary and cultural events, prepared by Roma Kišūnaitė, is published at the end of the magazine. On the back cover of the magazine, readers can see a photo of the monument of the writer Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas (sculptor Gediminas Piekuras) in Kaunas, where the writer is depicted with his beloved puppy Kaukas. Next to the photo, the image of the post stamp painted by Ugnė Žilytė, issued by the Lithuanian Post in memory of J. Tumas-Vaižgantas, is presented.

Žurnalas „Rubinaitis“, 2022 Nr. 2 (102)