Follow the Child, Follow the Books – Cross-Disciplinary Approaches to a Child-Centred History of Danish Children's Literature 1790–1850

Abstract

In this article we present the cross-disciplinary methodology of a project on Danish children's literature 1790–1850 that has the child as the point of departure. The project focuses on three contexts in which children and adults interact with books: the home, the school and the book market. Theoretical inspirations have been drawn from book history, children's literature studies and childhood studies, including the concept of agency. A major database maps Danish books aimed at children 1750–1850, making it possible to trace the popularity of titles through reprints and new editions and to follow specific actors (authors, illustrators, printers and so on). Ego-documents by children – for example, letters written by Ida Thiele (1830–1862) – are analysed as sources of information on children's own experiences with books, their use of different media and their interaction with peers, relatives and teachers in relation to reading and books. Finally, we demonstrate how significant changes in form, content and the materiality of books for children can be captured, when following specific books such as E. Munthe's books on history and geography around the communication circuit. The article concludes that a combination of different cross-disciplinary methodologies is essential in a history of children's literature with children at its centre.

Managing Media. Listening to Young Girls as Producers of Texts and Media in the Nineteenth Century and Today: Ida Thiele’s Letters and Naja Münster’s YouTube Channel

“…The fact that the letters of both Ida Thiele and her father were preserved testifies to the importance of the letters as a medium for the writers. 1 That a child's letters were preserved -and that it was possible for a researcher to find them -is also remarkable, as child-authored sources are extremely rare in archives (Appel and Christensen, 2017;Sánchez-Eppler, 2013). One of the reasons Ida was able to write to her father was because she had a teacher who taught her how to write, and she also had access to paper, pen, ink and postage, privileges available to few children at that time.…”

“…However, these scholars include media other than printed books only to a very limited extent. A further difficulty is related to the fact that children's writing is rarely published and kept in archives and collections (McGillis, 1991;Sánchez-Eppler, 2013;Appel and Christensen, 2017). A growing interest in children as (co-) producers of texts is reflected in an increasing number of publications focusing on contemporary children producing texts (Wesseling, 2019;van Lierop-Debrauwer and Steels, 2021), and there also seems to be an increasing interest in finding and analysing media content produced by children in collections and archives.…”

Literary Appreciation in Digital Literation

“…Such readings are now seen to be loved, even loved, by school-age teenagers [4]. While Grenby said that comics are the most widely read works by children and adolescents today [5]. One of the characteristics of a teenlit novel is the theme of adolescents and all its problems as their characteristics [4].…”

“Den herligste Tidsfordriv”

“…punkt for min undersøgelse (jf. Appel & Christensen 2017). Men hvis man godtager oplagstal, genoptryk-og genudgivelser som tegn på udbredelse, står det klart, at Den Danske Børneven og de mange dyr i den fastholdt en vaesentlig relevans over tid.…”