pied piper publishing

East meets West in Children's Literature
Edited by Pat Pinsent

£15 ISBN 0 9546384 6 8
2005

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A major source of strife in the world today is that which derives from the inability and unwillingness of different cultural groups to be open to learning, on anything other than a superficial level, about 'alien' customs and beliefs. Stereotypes, both of people and of their attitudes to life, are more comfortable to live with than the admission that our own habits of thought may be subject to challenge. Instead of celebrating difference, we in the West in particular are perhaps in danger of insisting that other cultures conform to our expectations. We are happy that they should retain a thin veneer of their original features in order to make travelling to foreign countries 'east of Suez' an interesting experience. While 'quaint' customs, ethnic clothing, and scenery unlike ours are all are attractive to us, making an effort to understand the way of thought of those brought up within a totally different cultural framework would be more painful for us, involving as it would a considerable outlay of time and effort and dispelling some comfortable and simplistic misinterpretations.

It is within this context that the 2004 British IBBY conference, 'East meets West in Children's Literature,' can be seen as an attempt to fulfil the hopes of the founder of the International Board on Books for Young People, Jella Lepman, that children's books would be instruments of greater understanding between nations. Her concern had been generated by the clashes between ideologies during the second World War. While today we are faced with even wider areas of mutual incomprehension, children's literature can still be a means of bridging gaps. If young people are made aware of the need to respect the cultures and beliefs of those from different backgrounds, there is hope that they will grow up with a more empathetic response towards other people than is all too evident in the world today.

Pat Pinsent

Contents

Preface
East Meets West in Children’s Literature: the Context	3
Compiled by Pat Pinsent
Introduction Pat Pinsent	11
Part One - Mostly India
A Hundred Years of Eastern Characters in Popular Children’s Fiction Mary Cadogan	19
British Children’s Fiction & India	25
Preetha Leela
East meets West: Jamila Gavin’s ‘Surya’ Trilogy	30
Sophie Mackay
Exoticism and Evangelism: Mrs Sherwood and Others	36
Pat Pinsent
Part Two - Middle and Far East
The History of Children’s Literature in Iran	57
Taraneh Matloob
The Representation of Arabs in Children’s Literature	61
Ann Lazim
Children’s Paradise: Texts and Pictures for Young Audiences in China between 1918 and 1947	68
Marian Allsobrook
Breaking away from Mickey Mouse: Indigenous Children’s Literature in Laos and Patterns of Development throughout the World	77
Yukie Ito & Gillian Lathey
Part Three - A Celebration of the Work of Diana Wynne Jones
Celebrating the Work of Diana Wynne Jones	89
The Rewards of Intertextuality: The Mythic Dimension of the Work of Diana Wynne Jones	90
Nicki Humble
Conclusion: Responses to the work of Diana Wynne Jones	101
Compiled by Pat Pinsent
Biographical Notes	107

11

Part Two - Middle and Far East

Part Three - A Celebration of the Work of Diana Wynne Jones