By JEANNE SMITH
A noted Canadian children's book critic called for global sharing of literature for the young to promote international understanding and enrich the lives of youthful readers.
In sharing books across national boundaries, "each country gets and each country gives," Sheila A. Egoff told an audience of children's book lovers Nov. 19 at a Children's Book Week celebration at the Library. The Library's Children's Literature Center sponsors the annual event.
In her lecture at this year's celebration, Dr. Egoff provided a close and critical look at children's books today. Her subject was "Some Paradoxes to Ponder: The Puzzling and Not Entirely Welcome Development of Children's Literature Since the 1960s."
In describing some of the fine children's books published throughout the world, Dr. Egoff said she would say to authors, "Please give young people a chance to hear voices other than their own."
Although readers need books about their own time and place, literature should never be "too bland," she said. "It should take us out of ourselves."
Dr. Egoff mentioned many trends she has studied in children's literature over the years, citing in particular a modern tendency to have characters "endure things rather than do things" and a change of locale in fantasy literature. Modern fantasy, rather than taking readers to other worlds as it often did in the past, has the supernatural breaking into the real world, often with children's being given special powers, she told her audience.
"I sense children's literature has reached a plateau, a catching of breath," she said. "But move on it will."
Dr. Egoff's activities include her own writing, teaching at the School of Library, Archival and Informational Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and organizing the Pacific Rim Conference on Children's Literature, held for the fourth time last summer in Kyoto, Japan.
She was introduced at the Library of Congress program by Sybille A. Jagusch, chief of the Children's Literature Center, founded in 1963 to promote excellence in literature for children.
Children's Book Week originated in a 1912 effort by the Boy Scouts of America to improve reading for boys. Events were arranged during the next few years, and in 1919 the first national Children's Book Week, for both boys and girls, took place.