The goal of the book is to investigate mediating practices used in translation of children's and young adults' fiction, focusing on transfer of contents considered controversial or unsuitable for young audiences. It shows how the macabre and cruelty, swear words and bioethical issues have been affected in translation across cultures and times. Analysing selected key texts from Grimms' tales and Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter to Roald Dahl's fiction, it shows that mediating approaches, sometimes infringing upon the integrity of source texts, are still part of contemporary translation practices. The volume includes contributions of renowned TS scholars and practitioners, working with a variety of approaches from descriptive translation studies and literary criticism to translation pedagogy and museum studies. "The angle of looking into the topics is fresh and acute and I whole-heartedly recommend the book for readers from scholars to parents and school-teachers, for all adults taking a special interest in and cherishing children and their literature". Riitta Oittinen, Tampere University, Finland

For many of us, our earliest and most meaningful experiences with literature occur through the medium of a translated children’s book. This volume focuses on the complex interplay that happens between text and context when works of children’s literature are translated: what contexts of production and reception account for how translated children’s books come to be made and read as they are? How are translated children’s books adapted to suit the context of a new culture? Spanning the disciplines of Children’s Literature Studies and Translation Studies, this book brings together established and emerging voices to provide an overview of the analytical, empirical and geographic richness of current research in this field and to identify and reflect on common insights, analytical perspectives and trajectories for future interdisciplinary research. This volume will appeal to an interdisciplinary audience of scholars and students in Translation Studies and Children’s Literature Studies and related disciplines. It has a broad geographic and cultural scope, with contributions dealing with translated children’s literature in the United Kingdom, the United States, Ireland, Spain, France, Brazil, Poland, Slovenia, Hungary, China, the former Yugoslavia, Sweden, Germany, and Belgium.

From Struwwelpeter to Peter Rabbit, from Alice to Bilbo—this collection of essays shows how the classics of children’s literature have been transformed across languages, genres, and diverse media forms. This book argues that translation regularly involves transmediation—the telling of a story across media and vice versa—and that transmediation is a specific form of translation. Beyond the classic examples, the book also takes the reader on a worldwide tour, and examines, among other things, the role of Soviet science fiction in North Korea, the ethical uses of Lego Star Wars in a Brazilian context, and the history of Latin translation in children’s literature. Bringing together scholars from more than a dozen countries and language backgrounds, these cross-disciplinary essays focus on regularly overlooked transmediation practices and terminology, such as book cover art, trans-sensory storytelling, écart, enfreakment, foreignizing domestication, and intra-cultural transformation.

This book offers a historical analysis of key classical translated works for children, such as writings by Hans Christian Andersen and Grimms’ tales. Translations dominate the earliest history of texts written for children in English, and stories translated from other languages have continued to shape its course to the present day. Lathey traces the role of the translator and the impact of translations on the history of English-language children’s literature from the ninth century onwards. Discussions of popular texts in each era reveal fluctuations in the reception of translated children’s texts, as well as instances of cultural mediation by translators and editors. Abridgement, adaptation, and alteration by translators have often been viewed in a negative light, yet a closer examination of historical translators’ prefaces reveals a far more varied picture than that of faceless conduits or wilful censors. From William Caxton’s dedication of his translated History of Jason to young Prince Edward in 1477 (‘to thentent/he may begynne to lerne read Englissh’), to Edgar Taylor’s justification of the first translation into English of Grimms’ tales as a means of promoting children’s imaginations in an age of reason, translators have recorded in prefaces and other writings their didactic, religious, aesthetic, financial, and even political purposes for translating children’s texts.

Translating Children’s Literature is an exploration of the many developmental and linguistic issues related to writing and translating for children, an audience that spans a period of enormous intellectual progress and affective change from birth to adolescence. Lathey looks at a broad range of children’s literature, from prose fiction to poetry and picture books. Each of the seven chapters addresses a different aspect of translation for children, covering: · Narrative style and the challenges of translating the child’s voice; · The translation of cultural markers for young readers; · Translation of the modern picture book; · Dialogue, dialect and street language in modern children’s literature; · Read-aloud qualities, wordplay, onomatopoeia and the translation of children’s poetry; · Retranslation, retelling and reworking; · The role of translation for children within the global publishing and translation industries. This is the first practical guide to address all aspects of translating children’s literature, featuring extracts from commentaries and interviews with published translators of children’s literature, as well as examples and case studies across a range of languages and texts. Each chapter includes a set of questions and exercises for students. Translating Children’s Literature is essential reading for professional translators, researchers and students on courses in translation studies or children’s literature.

Focusing on significant and cutting-edge preoccupations within children’s literature scholarship, The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature and Culture presents a comprehensive overview of print, digital, and electronic texts for children aged zero to thirteen as forms of world literature participating in a panoply of identity formations. Offering five distinct sections, this volume: Familiarizes students and beginning scholars with key concepts and methodological resources guiding contemporary inquiry into children’s literature Describes the major media formats and genres for texts expressly addressing children Considers the production, distribution, and valuing of children’s books from an assortment of historical and contemporary perspectives, highlighting context as a driver of content Maps how children’s texts have historically presumed and prescribed certain identities on the part of their readers, sometimes addressing readers who share some part of the author’s identity, sometimes seeking to educate the reader about a presumed “other,” and in recent decades increasingly foregrounding identities once lacking visibility and voice Explores the historical evolutions and trans-regional contacts and (inter)connections in the long process of the formation of global children’s literature, highlighting issues such as retranslation, transnationalism, transculturality, and new digital formats for considering cultural crossings and renegotiations in the production of children’s literature Methodically presented and contextualized, this volume is an engaging introduction to this expanding and multifaceted field.

Translating Children’s Literature is an exploration of the many developmental and linguistic issues related to writing and translating for children, an audience that spans a period of enormous intellectual progress and affective change from birth to adolescence. Lathey looks at a broad range of children’s literature, from prose fiction to poetry and picture books. Each of the seven chapters addresses a different aspect of translation for children, covering: · Narrative style and the challenges of translating the child’s voice; · The translation of cultural markers for young readers; · Translation of the modern picture book; · Dialogue, dialect and street language in modern children’s literature; · Read-aloud qualities, wordplay, onomatopoeia and the translation of children’s poetry; · Retranslation, retelling and reworking; · The role of translation for children within the global publishing and translation industries. This is the first practical guide to address all aspects of translating children’s literature, featuring extracts from commentaries and interviews with published translators of children’s literature, as well as examples and case studies across a range of languages and texts. Each chapter includes a set of questions and exercises for students. Translating Children’s Literature is essential reading for professional translators, researchers and students on courses in translation studies or children’s literature.