Desire, love, enthusiasm, doubts and other emotions

Desire, love, enthusiasm, doubts and other emotions. Fifty years of children’s literature in Spain Juan Mata

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t is difficult to understand the evolution of children’s literature in Spain over the past fifty years unless one analyses it in the light of the nation’s political and cultural history. There have been such profound changes in this half century that it would be impossible to understand what has happened without taking into consideration the complex transformation of Spanish society and the delicate transition from a dictatorship to a thriving and normalized democracy. One year prior to the inauguration of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, Spain had set up the Comisión de Información y Publicaciones Infantiles y Juveniles (Commission for Information and Publishing for Children and Young Adults), a public body reporting to the Ministry of Information and Tourism, whose mission it was to censor publications for children, from picturebooks to comics to magazines, with the aim of protecting children from any views contrary to those put forward by the ruling National Catholicism. In those years, suspicion and surveillance were the norm, as there was still a conviction that by regulating what was read

by children, a fundamental objective would be achieved: that of turning literature into a tool for controlling them. In the so-called Estatuto de Publicaciones Infantiles y Juveniles (Statute for Children’s and Young Adults’ books), published in February 1967, it was expressly stated that children’s books had to “adapt their content to the specific characteristics of the readers to whom they are addressed, taking particular care to emphasize the respect of the religious, moral, political and social values which inspire the Spanish way of life”. This adaptation of the content of children’s books to dominant thought meant that it was forbidden to write on any subject which might “upset or give rise to psychological or educational deviancy in readers”, or which described “scenes or subjects which could induce them to deviations from proper religious sentiment” or which included “imaginary tales imbued with scientific superstition which could induce the reader to overestimate technical as compared to spiritual values”, or which presented “deviations in the correct use of language or aesthetic, cultural or educational deformations to the reader”.

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And of course any book which, in the censors’ opinion, represented an “attack on the values underlying our tradition, our history and Spanish life, or a distortion of their meaning, as well as on those human, patriotic, family and social values upon which Spanish social life is grounded” would be banned. It was neither easy nor simple to write or publish in the shadow of similar warnings, considering the fact that authors, illustrators and publishers were permanently exposed to the whims and ignoble interpretations of individual censors. So, at the time the first Bologna Children’s Book Fair was inaugurated, there were still another twelve years until the death of the dictator Francisco Franco and fourteen until the first free parliamentary elections, followed one year later by the approval of the Spanish Constitution. In these ten years, there were already many voices calling for a new concept of children’s literature. Children’s books were still cluttered with the dominant issues of the period immediately following the Spanish civil war: patriotism, glorification of Catholic morals, political and religious hagiography and exaltation of Spain’s imperial past, Puritanism…, to which frequent new editions of stories, legends, fairy tales and all manner of expressions of popular folklore were added. In schools, religious and formative reading held sway, whereas in the streets and private homes people read comics and picture novels. Moreover, Spain bore the typical scars of a lengthy dictatorship: illiteracy was widespread; public libraries were few (less than 10% of towns had one) and even fewer had a children’s section. The funds and public spending devoted to books were paltry. Children’s libraries were an exception and school libraries were still a chimaera. Most Spanish houses also had very few books, so it was almost impossible to get families involved in promoting reading. There were no children’s bookshops (one of the first, the Talentum book46

shop, opened in Madrid in the early 1970s) and it was quite unusual for there to be children’s book sections in generalist bookstores. The scene was disheartening and the need for a change in the concept and the publishing of children’s books was clear. These calls for change came from people interested in children’s literature and from private bodies, but they also made themselves heard within the very State bodies, where some of the employees were less doctrinarian, more permissive or openly against the official doctrines. For example, in 1961 Madrid and Barcelona hosted the I Semana Nacional del Libro Infantil (First National Book Week), organized by the Instituto Nacional del Libro Español (INLE), and in 1964, on the initiative of Carmen Bravo-Villasante, member of INLE’s International Committee and tireless talent scout and promoter of children’s literature in Spain, the IX International Congress of the IBBY was held in Madrid. And so it was that thanks to individual initiatives and collective actions, both public and private, new spaces for children’s literature began to gain ground (fig. 1). In 1963 the Lazarillo Award, established five years previously by the INLE to recognize the best Spanish authors, illustrators and publishers, was won by a book of short stories entitled De un país lejano (From a Far Off Country), by Ángela C. Ionescu. Over the next three years, the award was won by Carmen Kurtz, Ana Maria Matute and Marta Osorio successively, whose works already announced a change of course, because both their subject matter and their style contrasted with the sentimentalism, the dreamy atmospheres, the moralism, innocence, ingenuousness and the folksy feel of so many other books. The delicate and expressive language which distinguished these books was also their attempt to distance themselves from all indoctrinating or trite tones. Some authors explored alternative paths to that of the heroic Spanish past, the virtuous

Desire, love, enthusiasm, doubts and other emotions. Fifty years of children’s literature in Spain

1. Illustration by Asun Balzola. From Asun Balzola, Historia de un erizo, Ed. El Jinete Azul.

model children or innocent childish fantasies, trying to reflect some of the problematic aspects of social life in their books, albeit through mild, implied and implicit references. The rural world with its false lyricism was gradually being replaced by the more authentic and conflictual urban areas. One of the priority objectives was also to establish a link with a forgotten or repressed literary tradition and to recover authors who had been exiled or silenced. At the end of this decade, authors such as Emili Teixidó, Francesc Candel and Montserrat del Amo published works on issues which anticipated the social realism of years to come and attempted to reproduce in children’s literature the trends that were then predominant in Spanish novels. This trans-

formation was given continuity by the work of illustrators such as Celedonio Perellón, Asun Balzola, Luis de Horna, Fina Rifà, who were committed to the formal and visual renewal of the pictures in children’s books. In 1969 the book Poesía española para niños (Spanish Poetry for Children), an anthology compiled by Ana Pelegrín was published, and it was to represent a milestone for the promotion of poetry, a literary genre which, like theatre, is more praised than read, more quoted than practised, to children and young adults. In the year in which the Bologna Children’s Book Fair was inaugurated, the publisher La Galera was founded, and from the outset it was very close to the then-emerging 47

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movements for pedagogical renewal, which called for a new kind of school and a new kind of literature for children. The previous year, the ban on publishing books in the other languages of the Spanish state had been removed, which allowed new children’s literature to emerge, written in Catalan, Basque and Galician. 1963 was also the year in which the publisher Juventud was awarded the Premio Nacional de Literatura Infantil for its publishing work as a whole. One of its chief merits was that of having brought Spain some of the most famous names in literature for children and young adults: Erich Kaestner, Mark Twain, Astrid Lindgren, J.M. Barrie, and Eleanor Farjeon… Again, 1963 saw the publishing of the Antología de la literatura infantil española, by Carmen Bravo-Villasante, who was also the mind behind the organization of seminars and courses on children’s literature at the Spanish branch of the Boston International College and in the National Library. One of the main characteristics of this change was the increase in the number of children’s books published. At the start of the decade, there were scarcely two hundred such books in print, but by the end there were nearly two thousand, most of which were first editions. Although many of the titles referred to picture stories or comics, it was a significant increase in any case. Publishers such as Santillana and Anaya, which were specialized in textbooks, exploited their commercial networks to distribute their new reading books. It was not an easy task. Esther Tusquets, a pioneer in the publishing of children’s books of extraordinarily high artistic and literary quality through Lumen publishing house, said years later that at that time there was no demand for quality children’s books, because even the most refined readers, when it came to choosing books for their children, abandoned all criteria and critical spirit and bought very poor-quality books without batting an eyelid (fig. 2). 48

In those days, as still happens today to a greater or lesser degree, there was a persistent concept of children which considered them sentimental, virtuous, innocent, happy, sensible, imaginative, and so books written for them had to conform to these stereotypes. Books such as Where the wild things are, by Maurice Sendak, published in 1963, but not published in Spain until more than a decade later, represented a new attitude towards children, their private worlds and their ways of understanding things. These ideas, although they represented minority views, began to make headway in Spain, undermining the antiquated and prudish view of children’s literature. A gradual renewal of subject matter, characters, language and structures was underway.

2. Illustration by Ulises Wensell. From Miguel Ángel Pacheco and José Luis García Sánchez, El niño que tenía dos ojos, illustrations by Ulises Wensell, Ed. Altea.


A bright rainbow With the return to democracy, a vibrant and open society developed in Spain, although it had been incubating during the last years of Francoism. It was as if an old painting had been restored and underneath the layer of grime and dust, a bright and multi-coloured landscape had suddenly appeared. The return to democracy brought about a profound social, cultural and economic metamorphosis. Life changed for Spanish people and freedom was no longer a forbidden word but a word used with relish. For example, it was one of the most frequently-used words in Hombrecillo vestido de gris y otros cuentos (The Little Man in Grey and other stories), by Fernando Alonso, published in 1978, in which the main character, a man in a grey suit with a grey gaze, but who had a real rainbow inside him, could perfectly represent what Spain had been and what it was really like. And it could also represent the immediate future for children’s literature: the appearance of a rainbow after a period of constantly grey weather. In the early 1970s, a long educational transition began, a long period of change which stretched from the promulgation of the 1970 Ley de Educación (Education Law), which brought radical changes to educational structures, to the implementation in 1990 of the Ley de Ordenación General del Sistema Educativo (Law for the General Regulation of the Education System) (LOGSE). Over those twenty years, the Spanish education system underwent a radical transformation. It is important to highlight the impact of this process, because one of the main boosts to children’s literature in Spain came from the movements for pedagogical renewal. Organizations such as the Associació de Mestres Rosa Sensat, set up in Barcelona in 1965, the Movimiento Cooperativo de Escuela Popular (MCEP), which held its first meetings at that same time, and Acción Educativa represented the growing desire for a profound transformation

3. Illustration by Carme Solè Vendrell. From Carme Solè Vendrell, La luna de Juan, Ed. Mars.

and the delivery of an education system that was public, active, democratic, secular, critical and pluralistic. These were the objectives that moved the new generations of teachers and linked them to the old republican teachers, who were victims of reprisals and forced into silence. For example, 1975 saw the birth of Cuadernos de Pedagogía, a magazine that was to play a key role in this renovation process. The transformation and the expansion of children’s literature in Spain proceeded in parallel with the changes to the education system. This interest in creating new children’s literature was the consequence of the arrival of a more open concept of childhood and the development of young people. New methods of teaching reading and writing were introduced, as were new relationships between pupils and teachers, new ways of organizing lessons, new learning models and also new reading books and new stories. Children’s literature became the object of special attention and one of the best tools for changing the education system (fig. 3). 49

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Another of the major characteristics of this new age was the significant increase in the number of publishers of children’s books, whose initiatives and series formed the foundations of the new children’s literature in Spain. The end of that decade and the early years of the next saw the first works from publishers representing the new phase such as Lóguez, SM, Alfaguara, Altea, Everest, Espasa Calpe, Edelvives…, whose books came in addition to those of publishers such as Juventud, La Galera, Doncel, Noguer, Miñón, Molino, Labor, Bruguera, Escuela Española, Lumen… When one reads the words of editors who began their activity in those years, pronounced years later, most of them stress the need they felt to bring major change to the feeble or decadent children’s literature that was published at the time. One cannot ignore the courage and hard work of those pioneering publishers, who made it possible for the explosion of the following years to take place, because talking of “publishers” is like talking generically about “schools” or “governments”. They are empty words if their meaning is not made clear. The advances made in those years came about thanks to a group of very talented and sensitive publishers, directors of series and consultants who stuck their necks out, often on risky criteria, on works and authors who are nowadays considered landmarks in children’s literature in Spain. Without their work, it would be impossible to understand the euphoria and the excellence that emerged shortly afterwards. Print runs continued to increase throughout the decade and a stable market for children’s books was established, inaugurating a fertile period of blossoming which mirrored that which the country was enjoying in all aspects of life. There was an increasing number of regular translations of the most famous authors of children’s literature from all over the world and this opening up to outside voices had repercussions on the works of Spanish authors too, who 50

thus came into contact with the most innovative trends in children’s literature. These new authors, who wrote in all Spain’s official languages, gave a new dimension to children’s literature in Spain: Juan Farias, Fernando Alonso, Josep Albanell, Consuelo Armijo, Joan Manuel Gisbert, Gabriel Janer Manila, Miquel Obiols, Carmen Vázquez Vigo, María Puncel, Sebastià Sorribas… The subject matter grew and diversified, making room too for life’s adversities and problems, and for conflict, both internal and social. In its turn, their language became less cautious, less simple, and formal resources were enriched with experiments and inventiveness. The same can be said of illustrators – Montse Ginesta, Ulises Wensell, Carme Solé Vendrell, Karin Schubert, José Ramón Sánchez, Maria Rius, Fina Rifa, Miguel Ángel Pacheco, Vivi Escrivá, Miguel Calatayud, Tino Gatagán…, whose daring and delicacy opened new routes for expression and claimed their own independent spaces, no longer functioning as a mere accompaniment to the text (fig. 4). In 1978, the same year in which the new Spanish Constitution was approved, the Premio Nacional de Literatura Infantil (National Children’s Literature Award) was established and the following year, in 1979, the first Simposio Nacional de Literatura Infantil, was held, with the participation of authors, pedagogists, publishers, librarians, critics, illustrators, bookshop owners and academics. Careful study of the conclusions of the Symposium shows that the main issues concerning children’s literature in Spain had already been identified: the need to establish ways of reaching out and increasing the practice of reading, the urgency of making children’s literature socially visible, of getting families involved in promoting reading, the need to train experts in children’s literature and include it as a compulsory subject in teacher training and in university courses, the creation and enhancement of school libraries


and setting up a children’s book section in public libraries, training librarians specifically in literature for children and young adults etc. It was not enough to publish good books, it was necessary at the same time to create readers, prepare classrooms and libraries to receive these books, train good teachers and convince society of how important they are. The return to democracy transformed the country. It was a time of great enthusiasm, adventure and cooperation, which naturally also brought changes to children’s literature. And although not everything that was written and published was top quality, we were witnessing the incubation and hatching of the new children’s literature.

Ever larger islands Judging by the data and the figures, the real boom years for children’s literature in Spain were the 1980s. In those years, there were more and more initiatives to defend children’s literature. Some of the events which contributed most to the transformation and consolidation of the children’s literature scene in Spain took place at this time: in 1980 the first number of the El Barco de Vapor (The Steamboat) series was published by SM, a series which gave a decisive contribution to the renewal of children’s literature in Spain; in 1981 the Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez and the Asociación de Amigos del Libro Infantil y Juvenil were established and the first Jornades Catalanes del Llibre per a Infants were held; in 1982 the II Simposio Nacional de Literatura Infantil was held and the Organización Española para el Libro Infantil y Juvenil (OEPLI) was founded, constituting the Spanish section of the Asociación Española de Amigos del IBBY, as were the Consell Català del Llibre Infantil i Juvenil and the Seminario de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil de Guadalajara; in 1983 the Colectiu d´Elx de literatura infan-

4. Illustration by Miguel Calatayud. From Miquel Obiols, Libro de las M’Alicias, illustrations by Miguel Calatayud, Ed. Kalandraka. 51

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til i juvenile was set up; 1985 saw the opening of the Centro Internacional del Libro Infantil y Juvenil (CILIJ), under the Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez. Some fundamental magazines in the field of reviewing and promoting children’s books in Spain were founded: Faristol, Peonza, Platero, CLIJ (Cuadernos de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil), Babar; awards and competitions organized by public and private institutions abounded; there was a profusion of symposiums, congresses and debates on children’s literature; exhibitions, fairs and book weeks became commonplace; there were more and more catalogues and bibliographies of children’s books; essays and specialized books were multiplying; the number of institutional campaigns promoting reading and children’s books increased; new specialist bookshops opened, as did new departments for children’s and young adults’ books in generalist bookshops; there were no end of debates on the meaning and the role of literature for children and young adults; studies on children’s literature were gradually introduced in teacher training colleges. There was great enthusiasm everywhere. The flood of books published during those years was astounding. The series and individual books came one after the other at dizzying speed, with ever larger print runs, the consequence being that alongside brilliant editorial projects, publications of scarce literary or visual quality appeared. The growing demand for children’s books had to be met in a hurry. The works of the most famous authors from all over the world of books for children and young adults were widely translated, while the number of Spanish authors and illustrators grew apace. This literature began to be considered a worthwhile and interesting genre. Many of the most famous writers of children’s literature in currentday Spain, in all languages, made their debut during those years. The books published were more and more carefully packaged and attractive, totally different from the low-val52

ue products to which so many of them were accustomed. Spanish publishing was modernizing and quickly tried to align itself with the European countries which had a more consolidated tradition in this field (fig. 5).

5. Illustration by Arcadio Lobato. From Arcadio Lobato, El valle de la niebla, Ed. SM.


The most widely accepted formal genres and trends began to take root in Spain too, from the strictest realism to science fiction, light humour, detective stories and fantasy tales. And in common with many other countries, the profound social changes which had taken place and the new emerging values were reflected in children’s books. The real world flooded into books, which no longer shrank from topics such as pain and suffering, cruelty, destitution, emigration and social rejection, in other words, the complex human condition. Subject matters and characters diversified, becoming more heterogeneous and psychologically more complex. Children’s books were now populated by the elderly, the insane, migrants, alcoholics, abusers… It is significant that it was at the beginning of this decade that the first children’s books were published on the Spanish Civil War seen from a perspective other than that of the winners. Años difíciles, by Juan Farias (1982) and Fosco, by Antonio Martínez Menchén (1985) are two examples of a trend which was to last and mature over the course of those years. In contrast with other countries, which tackled the history of their respective wars promptly, the subject had been absent from children’s books in Spain. Authors and illustrators such as Mariasun Landa, José Antonio del Cañizo, Xabier P. Docampo, Anjel Lertxundi, Bernardo Atxaga, Agustín Fernández Paz, Concha López Narváez, Ricardo Alcántara, Manuel L. Alonso, Francisco Climent, José María Merino, Alfredo Gómez Cerdá, Pilar Mateos, Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar, Alfonso Ruano, Arcadio Lobato, Carmen Andrada, Emilio Urberuaga, Fuencisla del Amo… made an extraordinary extension into this area possible. The mass of all these initiatives favouring children’s literature must not, however, hide reality, which was not always in accordance with the torrent of figures and data: the still limited public recognition of children’s literature, its

preponderant use for teaching, its minority status, its being considered as an entertainment product. Alongside the undeniable successes, some of the more daring publishing initiatives did not attain the hoped-for results. There was an avalanche of publications which the still fragile reading public was unable to digest. The fact that works of great literary or artistic value appeared on the market was not enough to make interest in books and reading grow immediately. These processes, significant as they may be, are not sufficient in themselves to change the situation on the ground. The editorial in the first number of the magazine CLIJ, entitled Pedimos la palabra (We would like to speak), recognised that the magazine had come along at a good time for children’s literature, considering that there were “an abundance of series and books, new authors, growing interest and a significant demand for information, which is reflected in the proliferation of short courses, study days, seminars, exhibitions and meetings” but that “despite these ‘islands’, children’s literature has not been normalized”. It was therefore necessary “to normalize the reviews of children’s books, to bring them up to the level of dignity and respectability that all books deserve”. It was not easy to overcome the deficiencies created by such a long dictatorship (fig. 6).

A time of reflection The most fortunate consequence of the growth in the 1980s was the consolidation of social, pedagogical and academic interest in children’s literature. It was no longer a priority to seek legitimacy for a genre which had proven to be not only a significant economic resource but also a vitally important cultural and educational project. The ebullience of those years served above all to open up new roads and win more space, to discover remarkable authors and illustrators 53

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6. Illustration by Emilio Urberuaga. From Kathrin Kiss, ¿Qué hace un cocodrilo por la noche?, illustrations by Emilio Urberuaga, Ed. Kókinos.

and to appreciate what was considered a minor genre. By the start of the new decade, children’s literature appeared established and recognized. Now, rather than having to defend it, introduce it or make it interesting, it was a question of raising the quality and improving it. 54

The number of congresses, meetings, study days, courses and books on children’s literature continued to grow. In 1993 the I Congreso Nacional del Libro Infantil y Juvenil, was held, organized by the Asociación de Amigos del Libro, and the following year, in October 1994, Seville hosted the XXIV Congress of the IBBY, thirty years after the one organized in Madrid. In that same year, the I Simposio sobre Literatura Infantil y Lectura was also held, organized by the Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez, and this continued to be held in the years that followed. Reading, and indirectly children’s literature, became the issue in pedagogy. Schools and institutes were full of events to promote reading, from storytellers and puppets to presentations of books and workshops, in a frenetic and festive attempt to stimulate people’s desire to read. The expression “encouraging reading” became the new magic words. And although the majority of these projects were not short of good intentions, their outcomes were not brilliant. One of the major characteristics of the final decade of the XX Century was the publishing houses’ re-thinking of their production processes. The explosive growth of the Eighties was followed by a period of calm and deceleration. After the process of normalization came a time for reflection and evaluating what had been achieved thus far. The supply of publications was stable, up with the best in Europe, but there was a growing feeling that too much material was being published and not always of the desired quality. The number of titles published did not suffer an immediate drop and nor did the print runs decrease drastically, but their publishing did start to slow down. One of the reasons for this was the finding that there was a considerable gap between the number of children’s books published and the numbers sold and read; and then another phenomenon appeared, which has only got worse since then: the never-ending flow of books for a limited number


of readers who, like librarians, parents and teachers, did not have the time to know what was being published, and the books were barely in the shops before being pushed out by the continuous flow of new books. It had become necessary to adapt production to the actual demand (fig. 7). In those years, some books of remarkable quality had been published, but so had a lot of books of little value. The fascination of numbers did not always correspond to the requirements of literary reading. And so “quality” became the main focus of debates. At the same time as deciding how much, it was necessary to decide what. Over those years, the number of new books declined and risks were reduced. This decrease in publishing had very negative consequences for the printing of picturebooks. It was perhaps the worst of all the consequences of the restructuring, but despite it, some of the publishing houses which were to enhance the quality of today’s picturebooks were founded at that time: Tàndem, Kókinos, Kalandraka, Corimbo, Media Vaca… In 1995, Ediciones Hiperión launched the Ajonjolí series, in a serious attempt to give children’s poetry the recognition it deserves. However there were other unfortunate consequences. Such as the one which impacted literary creation, for example. The strength of publishing figures mentioned above attracted large numbers of writers towards children’s literature because they saw potential in the market. From scarcely a hundred authors in the mid-eighties, ten years later there were over 400, proof of the success of children’s books. However, this did not translate into an increase in the literary value of the material. At the end of this period there was a feeling of stagnation of creativity, or even that it had regressed. The variety and the average quality of books being published were no better than those of the Eighties. Considering the expansion achieved, one might have

hoped for increased numbers of stunning and memorable works, but this was not the case. In the end, market logic prevailed: they produced the type of books that sold; and they sold the books that were produced. So there was not much space left for originality, experimenting or risk-taking. At the end of the decade, one could observe a certain routine, a trend of copying and cloning. Publishers clung onto successful formulae, be it the fantasy genre or history stories, with the inevitable consequences for creativity. Added to that were the constant fears of possible complaints from families, teachers or other groups who might find the text offensive, inflammatory or not politically correct, a threat which continued to weigh on publishers of children’s books. The consequences were predictable: a lot of publishing but low-risk and, frequently, low literary value. This uniformity rubbed off on the authors, who saw their work conditioned by the requirements of fashion. The need to sustain the market with new products induced publishers to look for different ways of recruiting authors. One of the most widely-used systems was to organize liter-

7. Illustration by Noemí Villamuza. From Libro de nanas, illustrations by Noemí Villamuza, Ed. Media Vaca.

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ary awards. Almost every publisher set up one of its own. It was a way of ensuring the arrival of manuscripts, which did not always have the desirable level of ambition or literary quality. Another idea they thought up was to get authors of books for adults involved in writing children’s books, as a publicity and sales gimmick. But the results were mostly disappointing. Their subordination to majority tastes, the reproduction of stereotypes and the decision not to explore innovative or transgressive subjects or resources, resulted in a glut of books that were of no great significance – and frequently insipid (fig. 8).

About visibility If one were to judge a country’s books for children and young adults merely on numbers or statistics, one would have to say that the state of children’s literature in Spain at the start of the XXI Century was outstanding: the number of titles published, around 10,000 and the volumes printed, close on 60 million books, was truly remarkable. Children’s books were, as the publishers themselves recognized, a fundamental pillar of overall literary publishing in Spain. At the same time, new publishing houses were springing up, devoted above all to printing picturebooks; series were updated and new ones created; the organization of awards continued apace, and more and more authors and illustrators were able to live on their output… In the early years of this century, despite the ever-cautious approach of children’s book publishers, there was a constant flow of new books, which was almost unsustainable for a market that was not particularly broad-based and thriving. Excluding best-sellers, new books had a very short shelf life in the bookshops. Publishers continued to prioritize the search for and publishing of best-sellers, which guaranteed commercial success, even if that meant 56

8. Illustration by Pablo Auladell. From Antonio Ventura, El sueño de Pablo, illustrations by Pablo Auladell, Ed. Los Cuatro Azules.

ignoring literary or artistic value. They were all hoping to find the formula for a new commercial phenomenon such as Harry Potter, Twilight, His Dark Materials or Inkheart. Thus it was that the fantasy genre, in its various forms – epic, elfin, magic or historical – became and continues to be the dominant trend. Beside them, all other subjects or scenarios are put in the shade. In any case, adolescents can be fed all kind of initiatic adventures, usually flat and predictable, or stories feeding them strong emotions – drugs,


sex, anorexia, friendships betrayed… – even if the literary quality is abysmal. However, judgement should not be made on numbers alone. Specialist publishers of books for children and young adults usually publish cautiously, with great care. It is a sector full of excellent professionals: publishers, designers, layout artists and illustrators. And one must not forget that after all, they are companies looking for profit, and they only make money if their books sell. Conflict emerges when the need to have healthy business results is juxtaposed with the request for a product of significant literary and artistic value. So which should be given priority – quantity or quality, safety or risk, sales or praise? It is not an easy tension to resolve. Because having got thus far, after such prolonged hard work on rebuilding and consolidating a recognized and independent space for children’s and young adults’ literature in Spain, it is legitimate to ask how many of the books published possess any literary interest, how many of them contribute to a real knowledge of the world and human life, and how many of them awake a true passion for reading. In December 2000, a sizeable group of authors, illustrators, librarians, critics, teachers and journalists published a Manifiesto contra la invisibilidad de la Literatura Infantil y Juvenil (Manifesto against the Invisibility of Literature for Children and Young Adults), in which they complained about the absence of proper reviews of children’s and young adults’ literature in the media and even in specialist magazines, which causes an unfair lack of knowledge of profound and valuable books. The negligible attention afforded to books written for children showed that children’s literature was still not considered true literature, and so it was necessary to break down prejudice and raise public awareness of the importance these books have in the development of children and young adults. What is deplorable

is that, six years later, the same claim for visibility was advanced, but this time by the publishers of children’s books. During the Saló del Llibre de Barcelona another Manifiesto was launched, again railing against the invisibility of children’s and young adults’ literature, which is interrupted only when some best-seller is published and on a couple of fixed dates a year, when one has to give children books as presents. They demanded public recognition of their work and also that children’s and young adults’ literature should be recognised as a cultural asset and a vital need. Both these manifestos flagged up something that despite so many years of effort had still not been achieved: social spaces for the recognition, promotion and debate on a type of literature which continued to be considered of limited worth. Another issue directly relating to children’s literature at the beginning of the century were the reading indexes. It was felt that children and young adults should read more, despite the fact that all surveys showed that they made up the social sector which read most in Spain, leaving adults a long way behind. In 2001 the Ministry of Culture presented its Plan for the Promotion of Reading, an ambitious four-year plan aimed at creating a social climate which was more favourable for reading. This plan was followed by a flood of plans from the different autonomous communities, the development and results of which have not yet been evaluated in depth. The main issue in the first decade of the XXI Century was reading. There were many different activities and publications created over those years and, apart from some projects better forgotten, they produced some laudable initiatives. One example we can give is the Servicio de Orientación a la Lectura (SOL), an exceptionally good website for information and training on reading and children’s and young adults’ literature. The promotion of reading is still a vital task nowadays and exceptional efforts 57

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are still being made by institutions such as the Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez, which opened the splendid Casa del Lector (House of Reading) in Madrid in late 2012, the Fundación Santa María and the Fundación Bromera, as well as by countless public and private bodies and associations (fig. 9). In the last few years, the publishing of picturebooks, which had shrunk in the previous decade, has grown again, thanks to the energy and the courage in sustaining them shown by new small publishers such as Barbara Fiore, Thule, OQO, Gadir, Faktoría K de Libros, Los Cuatro Azules, El Jinete Azul… The increase in the number of specialized bookshops and the expansion of the children’s

literature sections in generalist bookshops is well known. Many of these are grouped together in the Kirico Club, whose work promoting and recommending books is much appreciated. As the bookshops have grown, so has the number of literary reviews slowly increased, although little space is given them in newspapers, magazines and radio and television programmes. The blogs and web pages on children’s literature that have appeared in recent years are a new and encouraging phenomenon. At the same time, research groups such as Gretel, in the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the Centro de Estudios de Promoción de la Lectura y Literatura Infantil (CEPLI), in the University of Castilla-La Mancha, and the

9. Illustration by Isidro Ferrer. From Grassa Toro, Una casa para el abuelo, illustrations by Isidro Ferrer, Ed. Imaginarium.

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Asociación Nacional en Investigación de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil (ANILIJ), in the University of Vigo, together with many other university professors and researchers, have contributed to the study of children’s literature acquiring considerable importance. The organization of courses and congresses, the writing of theses and research papers and the publication of books and articles on children’s literature are proof of this lively interest. The outlook is bright and promising, even more so if compared with the situation of half a century ago. However, there are still some issues which deserve consideration. The main challenge is to succeed in having children’s and young adults’ literature acquire a status of its own and be appreciated for its quality, regardless of fashions and passing phases. In other words, it is a question of understanding how to develop a genuine reading public comprising those who read outside the compulsory school readings and objects of publicity campaigns and media or cinematic frenzies. It is necessary to make further efforts in this direction to ensure children’s literature becomes something more than a consumer product or just a teaching resource, because many, particularly in schools, still continue to assign it a formative role. Every “issue” appears to have an answer in some children’s book: fears, jealousy, the control of bowel movements, bullying at school, cultural dualism… And so literature seems to be merely a simple utensil, like the spoon which is used to get soup into one’s mouth. Teaching language itself is imbued with awareness of this instrumental use and one says, for example, that this or that book is useful for “working on one’s feelings”, or that others are needed to “work” on coeducation. In this sense, the idea that one of the fundamental purposes of children’s literature, if not the only one, is to “transmit” moral values, is particularly damaging. It is a deep-rooted conviction among teachers and families, a

legacy of the indoctrinating nature that children’s literature had in its origins and to which Spain was openly subjected under Franco. A “value” is considered a capsule of moral product that children take, like vitamins or painkillers, to be digested and assimilated by reading. One story could inject the “value” of coeducation and another novel transmit the “value” of pacifism. A conflict, which is not merely semantic, arises between the notion of “transmitting” and the notion of “building”. Values are not transmitted, nor injected; they are socially constructed. Naturally, children’s literature can contribute to this construction, but reading alone is not enough. One can read or listen to a story without anything happening, without any ethical change taking place in one’s mind. It takes much more than that to elaborate a value and incorporate it into one’s personal behaviour: discussion, reflection, action, correction. To consider children’s literature a sort of medicine is minimizing its meaning and mistaking libraries for chemist’s shops (fig. 10). An increase in the number of books published ad hoc may be observed, going in this direction, designed to “deal with” social problems: disabilities, emotions, multiculturalism, ecology, coexistence. Books which, rather than telling original and intense stories which stimulate reflection and emotional reactions to the difficulties that hearing-impaired children face, to the issue of preserving nature or the suffering of migrants, for example, make a very obvious approach to the “problem” the book intends to “work on” and the solution that it intends to give. This utilitarian view of children’s literature has allowed publishers to become the main mediators between books and their readers, directing tastes and trends and steering their way of reading. Books for children and young adults are appreciated more if they are accompanied by a critical review card prepared by the publisher. Children’s literature needs to resolve a clear 59

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10. Illustration by Elena Odriozola. From Pablo Neruda, Oda a una estrella, illustrations by Elena Odriozola, Ed. Libros del Zorro Rojo.

contradiction: the books are promoted mainly in schools, which is where children come together, but also where the language and practices involving books often restrict freedom and passion. This situation calls for a rethinking of the role of literature in schools and of schools with respect 60

to literature. We must think long and hard about literary practices in classrooms, experience of promoting reading and the use of school libraries which, if they work well, ensure that children and youngsters meet the books written for them. In this area, it is vital to insist on proper train-


ing of teachers. Universities have not fully understood how important it is that they develop programmes which give future primary and high school teachers proper training in this specific area. The new study plans at universities are not very demanding with regard to literature for children and young adults, which numerous Arts Faculty professors and researchers continue to look on with indifference, if not with disdain. It is quite possible that students who will

be working with children and teenagers at critical ages for their interest in reading to take root may not have done any courses on literature for children and young adults, or may have studied it just for a few hours in the framework of more generic courses. Proper training of future teachers is one of the major unresolved challenges, as is that of finding a way for children’s literature to coexist alongside current and future information technology.

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