The Nation and the Child
Nation building in Hebrew children’s literature, 1930–1970
The Nation and the Child – Nation Building in Hebrew Children’s Literature, 1930–1970 is the first comprehensive study to investigate the active role of children’s literature in the intensive cultural project of building a Hebrew nation.
Which social actors and institutions participated in creating a Hebrew children’s literature? How did they envision their young readership and what new cultural roles did they prescribe for them through literary texts? How tolerant was the children’s literary field to alternative or even subversive national options and how did the perceptions of the “national child” change in the transition from the pre-state Jewish settlement in Palestine to a sovereign state? This book seeks to provide answers to such questions by focusing on the literary activities of leading taste-setters and writers for children, from the most intense period of Israeli nation building – the 1930s and 1940s, the two last decades of the pre-state era, and the 1950s, the first decade following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 – through the 1960s, when the nation-building fervor gradually waned.
Which social actors and institutions participated in creating a Hebrew children’s literature? How did they envision their young readership and what new cultural roles did they prescribe for them through literary texts? How tolerant was the children’s literary field to alternative or even subversive national options and how did the perceptions of the “national child” change in the transition from the pre-state Jewish settlement in Palestine to a sovereign state? This book seeks to provide answers to such questions by focusing on the literary activities of leading taste-setters and writers for children, from the most intense period of Israeli nation building – the 1930s and 1940s, the two last decades of the pre-state era, and the 1950s, the first decade following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 – through the 1960s, when the nation-building fervor gradually waned.
[Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition, 10] 2018. xii, 186 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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List of illustrations | pp. vii–viii
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Credits
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Acknowledgements | pp. xi–xii
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Introduction
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Chapter 1. Nation building and the Zionist school: Creating a Hebrew poetics for children | pp. 9–26
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Chapter 2. The children’s weekly as the first hegemonic literary agent | pp. 27–44
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Chapter 3. Designating a national poet for children | pp. 45–56
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Chapter 4. Portrait of a hegemonic taste-setter | pp. 57–70
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Chapter 5. Inventing tradition and folklore | pp. 71–80
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Chapter 6. Making amends with Yiddish in the aftermath of the Holocaust | pp. 81–90
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Chapter 7. Calling children to arms through national war narratives | pp. 91–102
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Chapter 8. Conflicting voices in the kibbutz collective story | pp. 103–118
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Chapter 9. The debate over the child’s voice | pp. 119–132
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Chapter 10. Depoliticizing the children’s book market during Israel’s first decade | pp. 133–144
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Chapter 11. From nation-building to statehood: Reinterpreting a canonic text | pp. 145–162
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Conclusion: Building a nation with children’s books
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References
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Index
“In this insightful and wide-ranging study Yael Darr offers a unique approach to the research on Hebrew nation building by showing the central role played by Hebrew children’s literature in transforming an invented culture into a living native culture that was taken for granted.
This is essential reading for anyone interested in the complex cultural processes of nation building in general, the creation of a Hebrew children’s culture in the specific case of Israel, and the diverse and dynamic field of Hebrew children’s literature that evolved during the pre-state period and the first decades of Israeli statehood.
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Zohar Shavit, Tel Aviv University
“
The Nation and the Child offers an engaging and insightful discussion of the challenges that writers, educators, and publishers faced in creating a new national Hebrew children's literature in mandatory Palestine, and the changing literary trends and political sensibilities that marked its development in post-independence Israeli society. The book is a must read for scholars of Israel studies, nationalism, and children’s literature.”
Yael Zerubavel, Rutgers University
“[...] Darr’s analysis focuses on questions of broad significance to the study of how children’s literature evolves as an instrument of nation-building.”
Daniel Feldman, Bar-Ilan University, in Research in International Research in Children's Literature (2021)
Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Druker, Elina & Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer
2023. Introduction. In Photography in Children's Literature [Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition, 17], ► pp. 1 ff. 
Rybak, Krzysztof
2023. Obrazowanie Zagłady. Narracje holokaustowe w polskiej literaturze XXI wieku dla dzieci i młodzieży,
Pearson, Lucy, Karen Sands-O'Connor & Aishwarya Subramanian
2019. Editorial: Curating National Literatures. International Research in Children's Literature 12:1 ► pp. v ff.
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Subjects
Literature & Literary Studies
Main BIC Subject
DSY: Children's literature studies: general
Main BISAC Subject
LIT009000: LITERARY CRITICISM / Children's & Young Adult Literature