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Mark Twain’s classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is arguably about the history of theUnited States in terms of slavery and race relations. How, then, can this be translated to another language and culture, especially one with a very different background in regard to minorities? And in particular, how can this be translated for children, who have less knowledge about history and slavery than adult readers? In this essay, I analyse how Twain’s novel has been translated to Swedish. I study 15 translations. Surprisingly, I find that instead of retaining Twain’s even-handed portrayal of the two races and his acceptance of a wide variety of types of Americans, Swedish translators tend to emphasise the foreignness, otherness, and lack of education of the black characters. In other words, although the American setting is kept, the translators nevertheless give Swedish readers a very different understanding of theUnited Statesand slavery than that which Twain strove to give his American readers. This may reflect the differences in immigration and cultural makeup inSwedenversus inAmerica, but it radically changes the book as well as child readers’ understanding of what makes a nation.

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As it becomes more accepted and indeed even desirable to discuss different types of sexuality and different kinds of family set-ups with children, it is vital to analyse how children's books and young adult novels portray these topics. In particular, it is worth looking at how bisexuality is depicted in literature for younger readers 2 . These texts may be read to or by children in primary and secondary schools, and they may even be read by students in tertiary education. In this paper, then, I will briefly discuss the history of children's literature with regard to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other queer characters (LGBT) 3 , and I will then proceed to explore bisexuality in more depth. What this analysis suggests is that bisexuality is not much recognised or accepted, and if literature is relied on in educational settings as a way of teaching young people about a given topic, then children are not learning about bisexuality. If bisexuality is mentioned, it tends to be portrayed as less of an option than other types of sexuality. In short, bisexuality is either invisible or else negatively portrayed in books for younger readers. Epstein, 2013:8-15 for more on that), but it is worth pointing out that I consider children's books in a broad sense to be anything read by people 18 and younger. That is why I explore both picture books and young adult works here.3 By "otherwise queer", I refer to those who choose the queer label to represent their sexuality. This includes, among others, people involved in BDSM, intersex people, those who are questioning their sexuality, asexuals, and pansexuals, but only if they choose the queer label themselves. I have not yet found, say, a young adult novel with an asexual protagonist, or a book for children where the parents are in a master-slave relationship. This is not the place to discuss whether such topics are appropriate or not for children, but I simply wish to point out that these people exist in reality but not yet in the realm of children's books, and my personal view is that children have a right to be exposed to the world around them, in all its permutations. However, I am aware that not everyone is comfortable with the term "queer", especially in relation to children. In this paper, then, I will use LGBT for short, and I will leave aside "queer" elements for the present discussion. This does not mean that I am ignoring, for example, intersexual or asexual people.2

Mark Twain's classic novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is arguably about the history of the United States in terms of slavery and race relations. How, then, can this be translated to another language and culture, especially one with a very diferent background in regard to minorities? And in particular, how can this be translated for children, who have less knowledge about history and slavery than adult readers? In this article, I analyse how Twain's novel has been translated to Swedish. I study 15 translations. Surprisingly, I ind that instead of retaining Twain's even-handed portrayal of the two races and his acceptance of a wide variety of types of Americans, Swedish translators tend to emphasise the foreignness, otherness, and lack of education of the black characters. In other words, although the American setting is kept, the translators nevertheless give Swedish readers a very diferent understanding of the United States and slavery than that which Twain strove to give his American readers. his may relect the diferences in immigration and cultural makeup in Sweden versus in America, but it radically changes the book as well as child readers' understanding of what makes a nation.

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