In his survey Les livres, les enfants et les hommes (1932), Paul Hazard created a pervasive image of world childhood, 'la république universelle de l'enfance':
Children's books keep alive a sense of nationality; but they also keep alive a sense of humanity. They describe their native land lovingly, but they also describe faraway lands where unknown brothers live. They understand the essential quality of their own race; but each of them is a messenger that goes beyond mountains and rivers, beyond the seas, to the very ends of the world in search of new friendships. Every country gives and every country receives - innumerable are the exchanges - and so it comes about that in our first impressionable years the universal republic of childhood is born. (Hazard 1944: 146)
Hazard’s virtual universal republic of childhood is one which knows no borders and no foreign languages; in it the children of all nations read the children's books of all nations: ‘Smilingly the pleasant books of childhood cross all the frontiers; there is no duty to be paid on inspiration’ (Hazard 1944:147). It is an idealistic way of talking about children's literature which ignores both the conditions that determine its production and those which influence its transfer between all countries. But that didn’t stop it from being enthusiastically embraced in the aftermath of the Second World War where Hazard’s dream is gratefully declared reality, the ideal antidote to war, hate and destruction. Children's literature, and indeed children themselves, become the repository of the means to heal the trauma caused by war. Internationalism, international children’s literature and international understanding through children’s literature have been amongst the most important and widely used terms in children’s literature discourse from the mid-1940s to the present day.
I would like to approach this topic from two angles: one of them is a critical engagement with the ‘ideology’ of internationalism, examining the functions it serves in children’s literature discourse up to the present, with a special focus on the period after World War II. The impetus of ‘international understanding through children’s literature’, and the notion of the international republic of childhood is evidenced on the institutional level by the founding of the International Youth Library Munich in 1949 and the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) in 1953.
This impetus can also be observed in children’s books themselves, which is the second angle I would like to pursue. Children's literature during the post-World War II period in many western European countries can be generally characterised by its urge towards ‘international understanding’; German children’s literature of the time mirrors the country's desire to once again be part of the international community. I would like to look at picturebooks – especially those of the post-World War II era (1950s, 1960s) – in which the idea of universal communion between children is enacted in narratives which have children travelling, unhampered by border controls or different languages, throughout the world – sometimes as a quest to find a lost hat or other item. These can be read as object lessons in international understanding through children’s literature and as journeys to and within the universal republic of childhood.


Where Children Rule. Child Governance in Action and Contention Colloquium In children’s literature childhood is frequently represented as a state of being – as an imaginary ‘state’ even – and children are seen as aliens in need of passports to Adultland (and vice versa). Peter Pan’s Neverland is an example of a country you will have to leave if you decide to grow up. Narnia is another one of these childhood nations, since it is a fairyland closed to adults, a place where children rule. As Perry Nodelman shows in The Hidden Adult (2009) a general ambition is that the child should eventually receive a green card and full rights as a citizen in Adultland. There are very many key texts of and about childhood (e.g. The Lord of the Flies) in which we can see forms of child governance in action or in contention. Many children’s texts play with adult-child authority relations. This round-table colloquium will explore a range of texts in which children are, in various ways, empowered. We will discuss whether childhood itself may be thought of as a nationality, and if the wisdom of children might be seen as a helpful corrective in adult politics. The hoped-for outcome of the colloquium would be a second volume, edited by Kit Kelen and Björn Sundmark, functioning as a sequel to Nations of Childhood, to be proposed to Routledge for their Children’s Literature Research Series. Thus the colloquium is a meeting with a practical goal in mind – the creation of an edited international volume of essays on the captioned theme. Host and Convenor: Prof Kit Kelen, University of Macau Attending International Participants: Prof Björn Sundmark, University of Malmö Prof Mavis Reimer, University of Winnipeg Prof Emer O’Sullivan, University of Luenberg Prof Junko Yokota, National Louis University, Chicago Project Participants (not attending): Prof Clare Bradford, Deakin University, Melbourne Dr Zoe Jaques, Anglia Ruskin University Dr Åse Marie Ommundsen, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences Prof Bob Davis, University of Glasgow