From: Eliza T. Dresang <edresang>
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 07:49:30 -0500

Last evening the Children's Literature Circle, a group which meets monthly in Tallahassee, Florida, held an informal discussion of some of the year's best translated books, keeping in mind criteria for the Batchelder Award which goes to the publisher of the year's best translated book for children with substantial cultural content.

This year's "crop" of books is especially interesting in that books which may be eligible for the award come from a number of countries: Holland, Norway, Japan, China, and Denmark. Many years the books under consideration have come only from Western European countries. Another remarkable feature this year is the number of contemporary stories. A look at past winners reveals a predominance of books set during and just after WWII. The number of publishers with potentially eligible books also seems more diverse than usual with one recently established publishing house offering a candidate
(*Bruises* by Anke De Vries, translated from the Dutch by Stacey Knecht, published by Front Street). Finally, the style of writing is more varied and speaks more of how children's books in general are evolving than in some past years.

All of this is exciting and supportive of the purpose of the Batchelder Award in that young people in the United States have an increased opportunity to become acquainted with their peers in a wider variety of circumstances geographic locations through creative literature.

In Tallahassee we did not select a "winner," as various people had read different ones of the books under discussion, so we simply shared what we appreciated or did not.

Those of us who had read *The Friends* by Kazumi Yumoto, translated from the Japanese by Cathy Hirano, published by Farrar, were taken with the fine blend of cultural specificity and universality in this book. The three sixth grade boys and an elderly man are the "friends" of the story (although it appears initially that the title refers only to the youths). The flow of the story in and of itself speaks to cultural specificity: rather than reaching a dramatic peak or climax, it cumulates in a gentler, less obvious manner more typical of Asian than European literature. The "layers" of the novel run from ordinary childhood concerns--how to respond to the teacher's question--to deep thinking about the meaning of death, all in a perspective which is consistent and appropriate.

Interest also focused on two books by Jostein Gaarder. *The Christmas Mystery*, translated from the Norwegian by Elizabeth Rokkan, and *The Solitaire Mystery*, translated from the Norwegian by Sara Jane Hails. Both are published by Farrar. The creativity shown by Gaarder in these two books--one with 24 chapters centered around the opening of an advent calendar and the other with chapters on each of the cards in a playing deck--is extraordinary. There are stories within stories and travel through space and time.

*The End of the Rainbow* by Bjarne Reuter, translated by Anthea Bell, from Dutton has raised a fundamental question "what is a book?" as this second sequel to Batchelder Award book, *Buster's World* is published at this time only on the World Wide Web. Dutton offers on the web site to send a printed copy to anyone who asks. (http://www.penguin.com/usa/buster/flap.htm). Those who read it, liked it but did not attempt to answer the "fundamental" question.

All in all it's quite a unique year for translated books.
  The announcement has been made of a Batchelder discussion at the CCBC this week. Has anyone else read these books, does anyone have any thoughts on them or other translated books of the year, have any favorites?


Eliza T. Dresang Phone: 904 644 5877 (w) Associate Professor Phone: 904 224 1637 (h) School of Library & Information Studies FAX: 904 644 9763 Florida State University E-mail edresang at mailer.fsu.edu Tallahassee, Florida 32306 48
Received on Thu 23 Jan 1997 06:49:30 AM CST