Topics and Aesthetics of German Children’s and Youth Literature, by adults and children

Children’s Literature:  A Curious Case was the title of the two day symposium held by the Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai .

Ingratubun Gudrun, was the first speaker of the day.   She spoke about Topics and Aesthetics of German Children’s and Youth Literature by adults and children.

Mumbai based children's author Katie Bagli shares her notes from the session.

Germany publishes around 8000 titles of children’s literature in a year.  What kind of subject are they portraying?  Kids want something more than reality.  Something beyond mythology and preaching.

The focus is on intercultural topics so that children get to know about other countries.  One of their titles on this aspect is the recently published ‘Frau Bengali’.  

Also, many of their books bring out the lives of refugees.

For the very young, there are picture books that encourage children to come up with their own stories.  As an example a page from a picture book containing different types of fish was shown.  Smiling fish, sad fish, etc.  The children can be asked what they thought of each fish, thus bringing out different types of emotions and different stories:  why is this fish so sad?  Or what made this fish so happy?.

For early readers they have books with each syllable of a different colour and with wider illustraions.

Mention was made about a movement for first readers: ‘Book your story’.  Children are encouraged to write their own stories and make their own books, including the actual process of printing, binding, etc.  These books are displayed in the Frankfurt Book Fair in a special tent or in the café there.  

There needs to be a marketing strategy in India for German books.  The main hitch is that they haven’t been able to translate their books into regional languages of India.

Various children’s literature awards in different categories were discussed.  

There is a special international youth library in Germany in a castle.  They even offer scholarships for international researchers.  


The Glamorous Lovables(Shree Book Centre) is Katie Bagli's latest book for children.