About IRSCL

The IRSCL Award

The IRSCL Award for outstanding research was established in 1994. It honours a distinguished work in the field of children's literature research published in the two (calendar) years prior to the Congress at which it is awarded. The recipient must be an IRSCL member in good standing and must have been nominated by another member. Board members are not eligible for nomination.

Award Winners

2011

Picturing Canada: A History of Canadian Children’s Illustrated Books and Publishing
Gail Edwards and Judith Saltman
Toronto: U of Toronto Press, 2010

This book comprises an account of the history of children’s English-language publishing in Canada, concentrating on illustrated works and picture books, from the beginnings of Canadian children’s literature to 2005.

The authors have plotted the evolution of Canadian publishing for children against the cultural and political shifts which have characterised Canadian history. They focus in particular on how illustrated books and picture books have negotiated Canadian debates over nationhood and national identities, with particular reference to Indigenous peoples and texts, and ethnocultural diversity. The distinctive contribution Edwards and Saltman make is that this is not merely a literary history, but Picturing Canada investigates the networks of publishing, librarianship, education, retail, reviewing and research which attend the production and reception of Canadian books for children.

2007

Historien om bórnelitteratur: dansk bórnelitteratur gennem 400 år / The History of Children's Literature: 400 Years of Danish Children's Literature
Torben Weinreich
Copenhagen: Branner & Korch, 2006

One of the necessary and most relevant activities in a relatively young field of research is historiography. Analysing the historical emergence and development of one's object of study in a convincing and nuanced way requires mature distancing, thorough research, rich knowledge and a convincing theoretical framework to compose a history, a story of the development of children's literature in a particular area. Torben Weinreich's The History of Children's Literature: 400 Years of Danish Children's Literature is just such an ambitious and successful enterprise, offering valuable insights and models of thinking for other areas, fields, or geographical locations.

2005

The Poetics of Childhood
Roni Natov
New York / London: Routledge, 2003

The Poetics of Childhood is a study of the sensibility of childhood and the way writers have attempted to find a language in their work for children and for a mature audience with which to recreate this sensibility. Closely and intelligently reading an eclectic range of works from classics of children's literature (Burnett's The Secret Garden, Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden ) as well as modern titles (Rowling's Harry Potter), the poetry of Wordsworth and Blake, Nabokov's Lolita, Lessing's The Fifth Child or Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, Natov examines the construction of innocence, of the pastoral and the anti-pastoral, not shirking from the dark images that contribute to the poetics of childhood.

Reviews of The Poetics of Childhood by IRSCL scholars from the Netherlands, the USA, Finland, the UK, and Italy can be read in the reviews section.

2003

Reading Race: Aboriginality in Australian Children's Literature
Clare Bradford
Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2001

Reading Race demonstrates how Australian children's texts of all genres (fiction, non-fiction, picture books, school texts, films) represent Aborigines and Aboriginality to Australian children. It examines the ideologies of race which inform Australian children's texts, the cultural shifts that are visible in their representations of Aboriginality, and the tensions and uncertainties which they disclose. In its deployment of postcolonial theory and its attention to Aboriginal textuality, Reading Race affords models of theorized analysis of texts. It deals with questions of gender, colonialism and the sacred; issues of cultural appropriation, hybridity and reconciliation as they manifest in Australian texts.

2001

Kinderliterarische Komparatistik [Comparative Children's Literature]
Emer O'Sullivan
Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 2000

Emer O'Sullivan's pioneering study examines the relevance of basic questions and concepts of comparative literature for children's literature studies and develops them further. What emerges is a map of the relevant areas:

general theory of children's literature;
contact and transfer studies (including translation and reception);
comparative poetics of children's literature (including thematology);
intertextuality studies;
image studies;
comparative genre studies;
comparative historiography of children's literature; and
comparative history of children's literature studies.

The translation of children's literature is a special focus of the book. O'Sullivan draws on a communicative model of translation which links the theoretical fields of narratology and translation studies.

A final section addresses the concepts of world literature for children and children classics and analyses the globalisation of children's literature today.

1999

Norsk Barnelitteraturhistorie [The History of Norwegian Children's Literature]
Tone Birkeland, Gunvor Risa and Karen Beate Vold
Oslo: Det norske samlaget, 1997

1997

The Nimble Reader: Literary Theory and Children's Literature
Rod McGillis
New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996

1995

When Toys Come Alive: Narratives of Animation, Metamorphosis and Development
Lois Rostow Kuznets
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994

When Toys Come Alive> focuses on the role of toy characters (dolls, animals, mechanical objects) in older classics written for children or adults (e.g., The Nutcracker and the Mouse KingPinocchio, Winnie the Pooh, The Velveteen Rabbit) through modern texts like The Mouse and His Child, popular cartoons, and science fiction. Kuznets uses a variety of intertextual critical approaches to show how toy characters act out deep human needs, desires, and fears, reflect socio-economic hierarchies, and raise existential issues of power and creativity.

IRSCL Honour Books

2009

Mondialisation et Littérature de Jeunesse [Globalization and Youth Literature]
Jean Perrot
Paris: Electre, Edition du cercle de la librairie, 2008

The Hidden Adult: Defining Children's Literature
Perry Nodelman
Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008

2007

Pippi Langstrumpf als Paradigma: Die deutsche Rezeption Astrid Lindgrens und ihr internationaler Kontext / Pippi Longstocking as a Paradigm: The German Reception of Astrid Lindgren's Works and their International Context
Astrid Surmatz
Tübingen: A. Francke, 2006

2005

International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, 2nd edition
Editor: Peter Hunt
Oxford: Routledge, 2004

2003

Youth Cultures: Texts, Images, Identity
Editors: Kerry Mallan and Sharyn Pearce
Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003

Ways of Being Male: Representing Masculinities in Children's Literature and Film
Editor: John Stephens
London and New York: Routledge, 2002

2001

Ideologies of Identity in Adolescent Fiction: The Dialogic Construction of Subjectivity
Robyn McCallum
New York: Garland Publishing, 1999

Jeux et enjeux du livre d'enfance et de jeunesse / Play and Games: Books at Stake for Children and Young Adults
Jean Perrot
Paris: Éditions du Cercle de la Librairie, 1999

IRSCL Fellows

Since 2001 IRSCL has awarded an honorary fellowship to members who have made outstanding contributions to IRSCL and to research in children's literature. This award is announced and presented at IRSCL Congresses. IRSCL Fellows are:

2011

Okiko Miyake

Okiko Miyake began working in children’s literature in 1964 when she became a lecturer at Osaka Ohtani Women’s College. Later she gained a professorship at Baika Women’s University in Osaka, where she is now a Professor Emerita. Okiko Miyake’s many publications cover Japanese literature for children, representations of Japan in English books, chapbooks and picture books, with an emphasis on the cultural contexts of Japanese and English texts for children.

Okiko Miyake is a prominent research leader: in Japan she has been President of the Association of Studies for Picture books, and of the Japan Society for Children’s Literature in English. Her international connections are evident in her participation in IRSCL congresses and activities, and her work as the Chairperson of the Fourth Pacific Rim Conference in Kyoto in 1993.

Since 2010 Okiko Miyake has been the Chief Director of the International Institute for Children’s Literature in Osaka, one of the world’s great collections of children’s literature and a centre of activities for the general public. This Institute, founded in 1984, is located in the Osaka prefecture. In 2008 it faced the prospect that it would be closed down and its collection of more than 700,000 items dispersed throughout the holdings of the Osaka Prefectural Central Library. With her colleagues, Okiko Miyake first conducted a local and international campaign to prevent the closure of the Institute. When the Governor decided to go ahead with his plans, Okiko Miyake and her colleagues continued their campaign and took legal action to protect the Institute’s collection. Ultimately the collection moved to the Osaka Central Library, but because of the advocacy of Okiko Miyake and her colleagues the staff of IICLO are continuing their work of collection, classification and preservation as well as developing new outreach activities.

Tomoko Masaki

Tomoko Masaki began her work in children’s literature in 1973 when she established a private library in Osaka, sharing picture books, poems, and stories with babies, children and adults from all over the world. She worked as a lecturer in children’s literature at Baika Women’s University, becoming a Professor at Seiwa University in 2005.

Tomoko Masaki has devoted herself to research on the picture book: its history in Japan and England; its design, comparative cultural studies and audience studies. Among her many publications on this topic, her principal scholarly work is the two-volume History of Victorian Popular Picture Books, which comprises a bibliographic and analytical investigation of Routledge’s toy books, published between 1852 and 1893. This is the authoritative study of toy books, a key resource for anyone working on the history of British children’s literature. In 2006 it received the Harvey Darton Award, given biennially to a book that best addresses British children’s literature of the past.

In 2001, with her colleague Okiko Miyake, Tomoko curated a major exhibition, 'Through Eastern eyes: The art of the Japanese picture book' at Newcastle University’s Hatton Gallery.

In 2005 Tomoko Masaki took up the position of Chair of the Committee which organised IRSCL’s 18th Congress in 2007. This was the first IRSCL Congress held in Japan and one of the most successful in the Society’s history. With her colleague Okiko Miyake and many other Japanese scholars, she has been a key supporter of the International Institute for Children’s Literature in Osaka in its struggles for survival since 2008. Tomoko Masaki is the chief plaintiff in the continuing court case initiated by IICLO at the Osaka District Court concerning the ownership of the many rare and precious items in the IICLO collection.

2009

Sonja Svensson

The IRSCL Fellowship recognises Sonja's extensive and longstanding contributions to IRSCL and to research in children's literature, especially in Sweden. Sonja's first contact with IRSCL occurred in 1976 outside Stockholm, when she assisted Mary Ørvig and Göte Klingberg, who as secretary and chairman organised the symposium. After the Moscow conference in 1981 she was elected to the IRSCL Board and served as Secretary to Denise Escarpit in preparing the Bordeaux program in 1983, the same year in which she obtained her PhD and succeeded Mary Ørvig as director of the Stockholm Institute. Sonja served as Vice President until the conference at Montreal in 1985 and attended further IRSCL Congresses in Cologne, Salamanca, Paris, Stockholm and Kristiansand.

Helene Ehriander (Växjö University) received the award on Sonja's behalf and read her acceptance speech. Helene also outlined Sonja's contributions to IRSCL and to children's literature, pointing out that she has published and lectured nationally and internationally in the field since the late 1960s. Sonja's main research interests have been children's periodicals, young adult literature and the interaction of society and literature. She was responsible for sections on children's books in Sweden's most extensive history of literature and its leading modern encyclopaedia. From 1983 to 2005 Sonja was engaged as Director of the Swedish Institute for Children's Books. In this role she organized research conferences and was the editor of the Institute's biannual magazine and of some 70 titles in the Institute's professional series, in most cases offering authors professional advice and manuscript readings. She has been a member of diverse juries, including the Italian Rolando Anzilotti Award (1986-94) for outstanding international studies in the field and the Brothers Grimm Award of the Osaka Institute (1998-2008). She was on the advisory board of Bookbird (1997-98) and in retirement continues to pursue research into children's periodicals.

Riitta Kuivasmäki

The IRSCL Fellowship awarded to Riitta Kuivasmäki recognises her service to IRSCL and to children's literature research in Finland. Riitta joined IRSCL in 1981 and served on the IRSCL Board from 1985 until 1989. In her second term on the Board she took on the responsibility of Treasurer with notable efficiency, computerising membership information for the first time. The Frankfurt Congress was the eighth Congress which Riitta attended.

Riitta Kuivasmäki has been one of the main pioneers of children's literature research in Finland. Her doctoral thesis was among the first studies ever written about children's literature in Finland, and she was the first academic to work in the field of children's literature in Finland. She initiated the founding of the Finnish Institute for Children's Literature in 1978, and was its first director, leading the institute from 1980 until her retirement in 1999. During her period as director of the Finnish Institute for Children's Literature she produced bibliographical material still used by Finnish scholars. Riitta has always encouraged young scholars and has initiated many projects. She has had many international interests, including a period as visiting scholar in the Osaka Institute of Children's Literature.

To celebrate Riitta's Fellowship the current group of young Finnish scholars wrote and performed the following song in her honour at the IRSCL Banquet:

Tanssi, Riitta, laula, Riitta,
on pränikkä nyt sulla,
kunnia on ikuinen ja lisääkin voi tulla!

Tutki, Riitta, tutki, Riitta,
kirjoja on monta,
koivu, tähti, Jörö-Jukka
-- ei oo mahdotonta!

A Finnish folk song melody
Lyrics by "The Young Finns"

English Translation:

Dance, Riitta, sing, Riitta, you've now been awarded,
The honour stays for ever, and there might be even more on the way!

Research, Riitta, research, Riitta, the books are so many,
A birch, a star, a Struwwelpeter - nothing is impossible!

(The birch and the star refer to a literary fairy tale of Zacharias Topelius after which the bibliography of Finnish juvenile literature published between 1543 and 1899 was named. The bibliography was written by Riitta Kuivasmäki, Marja Kukkonen and Marita Rajalin).

2007

Ann Lawson Lucas

Ann Lawson-Lucas was a board member in the 1990s who organised both a symposium with publication and a congress with proceedings in the UK. The congress she managed in York, 1997 'The Presence of the Past in Children's Literature', made a significant contribution to the Society's funds which enabled us to support numerous travel and research grants. More recently she has been instrumental in approaching Edinburgh University Press and negotiating a contract that sees them publishing the IRSCL journal. In this process she not only gave her time and expertise to securing what is an important new development for the Society's future and status but she has also supported it in other ways, including by serving in a senior capacity on its advisory board.

Anne Scott MacLeod

Anne Scott MacLeod was President from 1985-89, a crucial period in the Society's history. She oversaw the creation of the by-laws and the regularisation of financial and congress arrangements. Under her leadership the IRSCL became a more robust and effective organisation for its members; without her efforts it might not have survived.

2005

Jean Perrot

For many years, Jean Perrot was Director of the Institut International Charles Perrault, a centre for research in children's literature which he founded in Eaubonne in 1994. He has organized a host of international conferences and edited many important collections of essays. In 1991, he hosted the highly successful 10th Biennial IRSCL Congress in Paris, and then edited the proceedings of the congress, Culture, texte et jeune lecteur, which were published with the Presses Universitaires de Nancy in 1993. He has also served on the IRSCL Board of the IRSCL. Jean's indefatigable promotion of international exchange and collaboration in the study of children's literature has had a major impact on the field. In 2001 he was awarded the International Brothers Grimm Award.

2003

Göte Klingberg

The IRSCL Fellow was established in 2001 to honour someone who has made a significant contribution to the field of children’s literature research and to the IRSCL. The first recipient of the award in 2001 was Klaus Doderer, the first president of the IRSCL. The second IRSCL Fellow was announced at the farewell banquet of the Kristiansand congress by President Sandra Beckett; he is Göte Klingberg, who was the second president of the IRSCL from 1974-1978 (the fact that the first two Fellows are both past presidents is coincidental and does not set a precedent!). Unfortunately, Göte could not be present at the award ceremony.

Göte Klingberg was born in Loviisa, Finland in 1918, but his family returned to Sweden shortly thereafter. He studied theology and education at Lund University. His research on children’s literature began as a private interest in the 1950s. In 1962, he published Barnboken genom tiderna: en översikt and in 1964, he was awarded a doctorate at Uppsala University for a dissertation in educational history titled Svensk barn- och ungdomslitteratur 1591-1839, the very first Ph.D. thesis on children’s literature in Sweden.

Göte Klingberg has often been referred to as “the father of Swedish research into children’s literature,”, but I prefer Stefan Mählqvist’s designation of “the Linnaeus of research on children’s books,” because, like Linnaeus, Klingberg’s work has had a major impact well beyond Swedish borders. What strikes one immediately on glancing through his bibliography is his vast, encyclopedic knowledge, the breadth of his cultural interest, and the scholarly rigour of his work. Among his first studies from the 1950s were an essay on the corrupted Latin liturgical formulas present in children’s rhymes and one on the complexity of the language of comic strips, which contradicted the claims of those who disparaged the genre at the time. He was concerned about the lack of a common terminology in the field and published in that area. He is also published surveys of existing research and research needs, the history of childhood, the history of the book, trends in the translation of children’s books, fantasy, etc. He has studied early imports of English picture books to Sweden, as well as a study of British landscapes in children’s books (Besök brittiska barnbokslandskap, 1987). In 1982, he began what Lena Törnqvist, in the Introduction to the bibliography of Klingberg’s work, calls his magnus opus, a three-volume survey of children’s and young people’s book publishing in Sweden in the nineteenth century, which involved the tracking down, cataloguing, and classifying of every work published for young readers in Sweden from 1840-1889. This translates into the personal inspection of most of the almost 4,800 titles! This ground-breaking work has become the model for similar projects in other countries. His impressive output continues: Göte, who recently celebrated his 85th birthday, has completed two manuscripts in English that Sonja Svensson, Director of the Swedish Institute for Children’s Literature, hopes will appear in the series of the Swedish Institute for Children’s Literature, to which he has already contributed at least five titles.

Lena Törnqvist says that it was indirectly thanks to Klingberg’s research that it was possible, in 1991, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first children’s book in Sweden. In 1972, he was award the Swedish Gulliver Prize for his “wide-ranging and pioneering works on children’s literature.” About the same time, he was involved in the founding of the IRSCL. His significant contribution to the field in other countries, especially Germany, was recognized by Klaus Doderer and Theodor Brüggeman on the occasion of Göte’s 70th birthday in 1988. In 1989, his international contribution to the field was acknowledged when he was awarded the prestigious International Brothers Grimm Award.

Publications

Klingberg, Göte, ed. Children's books in translation: the situation and the problems. Proceedings of the third symposium of the International Research Society for Children's Literature held at Södertälje, August 26-29, 1976. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1978.
Klingberg, Göte. Sekelskiftets barnbokssyn och Barnbiblioteket Saga [The view of children´s books at the turn of the century 1900 and the Saga library for children]. 1966.
Klingberg, Göte. Barnlitteraturforskning. En introduktion. 1972. Children´s literature research. An introduction

De fremmede verdener i brrne- og ungdomsromanen

Klingberg, Göte. De främmande världarna i barn- och ungdomslitteraturen [The strange worlds in children's fiction] Rabén & Sjögren, 1980. VFrket er en revideret udgave af ovenstDende.
Klingberg, Göte: Besök i brittiska barnbokslandskap. Stockholm: Sjöstrand, 1987. – Summary: Visits to British children's book landscapes.
Klingberg, Göte: Denna lilla gris gDr till torget och andra brittiska toy books i Sverige 1869–79 [British toy books in Sweden 1869–79]. Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren, 1987. Ground-breaking work on British toy books in Sweden.
Klingberg, Göte & Bratt, Ingar: Barnböcker utgivna i Sverige 1840–89: en kommenterad bibliografi. Lund: Lund university press, 1988. 3 vol. – Summary: Children's books published in Sweden 1840–89: an annotated bibliography.
Klingberg, Göte. Till gagn och nöje: svensk barnbok 400 Dr. Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren, 1991. – Summary: For instruction and delight: the Swedish children's book: 400 years.
Klingberg, Göte. Folklig vers i svensk barnlitteratur. Stockholm: Natur och Kultur, 1994. – Summary: Poetry from oral tradition in Swedish children's literature.
Klingberg, Göte. Den tidiga barnboken i Sverige: litterära strömningar, marknad, bildproduktion. Stockholm: Natur och Kultur 1998. – Summary: Early children's books in Sweden: literary movements, the book market, picture production.
Klingberg, Göte. Tryckta skrifter 1931-1999 / Veröffentlichen 1931-1999/Publications 1931-1999. Stockholm: Svenska barnboksinstitutet, 2001.
Förord av Sonja Svensson. Inledning av Lena Törnqvist. Parallelltext pD tyska och engelska.
Svensk barn- och ungdomslitteratur 1591-1839 en pedagogikhistorisk och bibliografisk översikt [Swedish literature for children and adolescents 1591-1839 a historical and bibliographical survey].

This information was prepared by Sandra Beckett with the help of Sonja Svensson, Director of the Swedish Institute for Children’s Literature, who co-edited with Göte Klingberg a bibliography of his work in 2000. The book contains an excellent introduction by Lena Törnqvist, Senior Librarian at the Institute.

2001

Klaus Doderer