Category Archives: German-language children’s books

Wilhelm Busch’s Ice-Peter: A Cautionary Tale for Extreme Winter Weather

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The Fearful Tragedy of Ice-Peter. London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1868. (Cotsen 40437)

Once upon a time there was a day so cold that no one with any sense would go outside.  A wilful boy named Peter slipped out the front door to go skating when his parents were warming their fingers and toes by the stove.  Peter walked past the crows that froze stiff and fell out of the trees.  He ignored the old sportsman’s warning to turn back.  He laughed at the poor rabbit and sat down on a stone to put on his skates.  When he launched himself on the ice, his pants stuck to its frigid surface and tore a big hole in the seat.

He fell into a hole in the ice and managed to scramble out quickly, but not before he was drenched with water.  It was so cold on the pond that the water dribbling off his extremities immediately froze into icicles, which greatly restricted his range of motion.When the good old sportsman and Peter’s father went looking for him, they found him stuck fast to the ice sheet covering the pond.  With an axe, they chopped him free and carried him home to his mother.Peter was put near the stove to warm up, but this sensible remedy reduced the bad boy to a clear liquid that covered the entire floor. Being frugal people, his distraught parents had the presence of mind to swept what was left of their son into a fine earthenware Topf, label it “Peter” and preserve his  earthly remains between the pickles and cheese.No one needs to know what a “bomb-cyclone” is to grasp the moral of this story.  If you live in Princeton, don’t venture out on Lake Carnegie until the University posts a sign that the ice is safe.  Stay indoors and read more edifying illustrated stories by the great Wilhelm Busch about disobedient boys who richly deserved what they got.  Give his classic Max and Moritz a try.   Or you could try the new Philip Pullman fantasy, La Belle Sauvage, the first installment in The Book of Dust.   It’s a page-turner…

Imagining Sameness and Difference in Children’s Literature just published

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The Little Traveller, or A Sketch of the Various Nations of the World (London: Dean and Munday, ca. 1830).

In October 2013, Cotsen hosted the conference, “Putting the Figure on the Map: Imagining Sameness and Difference for Children.”  The monograph based on the proceedings, Imagining Sameness and Difference in Children’s Literature from the Enlightenment to the Present Day co-edited by Emer O’Sullivan (Leuphana University) and Andrea Immel (Cotsen Children’s Library, Princeton University), has just been published by Palgrave Macmillan in the series “Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature.”   It features thirty-seven black-and white illustrations; for color, the e-book must be purchased.  

The front cover features a charming illustration of stylishly dressed little Parisians holding hands with Alsatian children in traditional costume from the famous picture book Mon village (1917).  While the illustration appears to celebrate friendship, the author/illustrator Oncle Hansi (aka Jean-Jacques Waltz) was only interested in  friendship among French-speaking Alsatians and the French.  At the time Alsace-Lorraine belonged to Germany and Oncle Hansi cruelly caricatured the German-speaking Alsatians as he worked tirelessly to overthrow German rule so that the region could rejoin France.  The propaganda is made palatable by the style of the illustrations and readers now find it difficult to see what the conventions of representation were supposed to communicate.

As O’Sullivan and Immel argue in the introduction, “The identification and evaluation of these conventions concerns practioners–parents, teachers, school librarians, editors, and publishers vetting materials–the process is equally important to literary critics and historians who examine children’s books for evidence of a society’s attitudes and the way those ideas circulate in order to contextualize them.  A nuanced understanding of the what and how and why of portraying sameness and difference is critical to an appreciation of the role of children’s books in promoting social change.”

The twelve essays by leading scholars from the United States and European Union: the roster includes Amanda M. Brian, Nina Christensen, Gabrielle von Glasenapp, Margaret Higonnet, Cynthia J. Koepp, Gillian Lathey, Silke Meyer, Lara Saguisag, Martina Seifert, and Verena Rutschmann.  Texts from Denmark, Germany, France, Russian, and the United States from the last two hundred years are analyzed–not just literary works, but picture books, non-fiction, comics, instructional volumes, novelties with moveable illustrations.   This volume does not attempt to offer a comprehensive survey or history of representations of difference in children’s literature: rather the contributors “offer a sample of the issues and materials that are a part of this history and the kinds of questions that can and must be asked of them if such a survey or history should be written.  By engaging with the past…the authors provide a wider context and a more discerning way to look at diversity and national identify tropes in children’s literature today.”

Dolls and Sights of the Crystal Palace from the series “Aunt Mavor’s Picturebooks for Little Readers.” (London; Routledge, 1852).

Lapland Sketches, or Delineations of the Costume, Habits and Peculiarites of Jens Holm and his Wife Karina Christian. Jens and Karina were exhibited at the Egyptian Hall in London. (London: J. Harris and Son, 1822). Cotsen 40103.