#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #FRANCE #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) #France, UCL AL #329 - Imaginaries, Children's literature Utopia told to children (ca, de, it, fr, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The history of children's literature tells the place that society gives to

children: from Little Girls models to the Tour de France by two children, from
Max and the Maximonstres to Julie who had the shadow of a boy. This says a lot
about the model of society that we want to instill in them. The profusion of
calembredaines and insipid texts testifies to the ignorance in which we wish to
lock them up... while telling them beautiful stories. However, at all times,
deeply emancipatory works have emerged, of which here are some representative
samples. ---- Make no mistake, Alice's "Wonderland" is misnamed. Far from being a
utopia, it is above all the kingdom of nonsense. Lewis Carrol actually stages a
young revolutionary whom he charges with revealing the mechanisms of opposition
to common sense. Even if she is only a dream, her adventure shows the way to a
world free from oppression. But shouldn't every project be dreamed up before
being executed? In 1919, Edy-Legrand showed the "benefits" of colonization from
the point of view of Macao and Cosmage[1], characters who give their name to the
album and who live an "eternal spring" on a fantastic island, surrounded of
animals, marvelous flowers and tasty fruits, in the carelessness of Rousseau's
state of nature.

At the request of the pedagogue Francisco Ferrer for his Modern School, Jean
Grave[2]wrote, in 1908, a robinsonade which served as a pretext for the
description of the establishment, by adults, of a resolutely anarchist society.

All these titles, imprinted with their time, because they are deeply timeless,
remain perfectly current. All are also available.

Where Everyone works to feed their neighbor
Some classic works have also seen some successful adaptations into children's
albums. Thus, Simon Bailly[3]took over the founding text of Thomas More, Utopia,
to tell the story of the writer of a king who must find refuge on "a formidable
island, where princes and peasants dine at the same table", "where everyone works
to feed the mouth of the other" and where money has no value. And Donald B.
Johnson[4]was inspired by Thoreau's Walden when he told Henry's Voyage, the story
of two friends who decided, to get to Fitchburg, one to walk and the other to
work until you win the price of the train ticket, to see who gets there first.
Rare criticism of the value of work for children... even though the 1949 law on
publications for young people prohibits any praise of laziness!

Revolution and self-management in the barnyard
But contemporary creation also offers its own proposals. If the universe of
Claude Ponti is not always a marvelous world, it reflects many conflicts, in
particular strong opposition to authority, that of adults and parents in
particular. As for its young heroes, most follow an initiatory quest and face all
kinds of monsters and tyrants, to defend their integrity and their childish
imagination. Lili Prune[5], in particular, affirms a certain precocity in her
desire for autonomy and develops her own pedagogy, resolutely... without god or
master!

We should also point out this fabulous farmer duck[6]"who had the misfortune to
live with a terribly lazy farmer": in just sixteen double pages and under the
deceptively innocent line of Helen Oxenbury, these are nothing less than the
notions of struggle of classes and of revolution, of expropriatory strike and
self-management, which are presented! In Four Little Pigs, a rabbit, a cow, a
beaver and... a wolf![7], Nadia Ghanem manages a subtle diversion of the tale by
discreetly adding a fourth protagonist, a follower of Kropotkin and illich, who
will build a house for herself using "friendly techniques" and thanks to mutual
aid between neighbors . Finally, Charlotte Dugrand and Bruno Bartkowiak, in Jojo
le pirate[8], evoke sharing and solidarity, collective decision-making. Difficult
to make brief on such a subject. Beyond these few examples that provide some
initial benchmarks, an in-depth study deserves to be carried out. This fall, at
La Fabrique, an essay by Christian Bruel[9]on the relationship between politics
and children's books will be published. Perhaps we will find other avenues of
reflection there.

Ernest London (UCL Le Puy)

To validate

[1]Edy-Legrand, Macao and Cosmage, Circonflexe, 2020, 58 pages.

[2]Jean Grave, Free Land. The Pioneers, Red and Black, 2015, 182 pages.

[3]Simon Bailly, Utopia, L'Agrume, 2019, 88 pages.

[4]Donald B. Johnson, Henry's Journey, Casterman, 2001, 28 pages.

[5]Claude Ponti, The Revenge of Lili Prune, The School of Recreation, 2003, 52 pages.

[6]Martin Waddell and Helen Oxenbury, The Farmer Duck, The School of Recreation,
1999, 40 pages.

[7]Nadia Ghanem and Éva Bourdier, Four little pigs, a rabbit, a cow, a beaver
and... a wolf!, The Soluble Fish Workshop, 2021, 48 pages.

[8]Charlotte Dugrand and Bruno Bartkowiak, Jojo le pirate, Libertalia, 2015, 32
pages.

[9]Christian Bruel, The Political Adventure of the Youth Book, La Fabrique,
October 2022.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Litterature-jeunesse-L-utopie-racontee-aux-enfants
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