TY - CHAP

T1 - Fun and Military Games

T2 - The War in German Picturebooks, 1914-1915

AU - O'Sullivan, Emer

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - Leading up to the First World War, German children’s books, in line with the general militarisation of culture, were published in the service of patriotic education and to prepare children for the war. During the war years, enthusiasm for the conflict was encouraged by books which celebrated military action and justified ‘necessary’ sacrifices. This chapter examines how the special emotional appeal of picturebooks, which work with both word and images, and the way in which they lend themselves to travesty and caricature were exploited to make military matters and war exciting and entertaining. It looks at a variety of predominantly comic representations of children playacting soldiers and war in picturebooks and illustrated material with a war theme issued in Germany and Austria in 1914 and 1915, with a special focus on the double address. In these books, war is offered to child readers as an arena in which their desire to emulate adults, and especially their fantasies of omnipotence, can be satisfied; at the same time children playacting war in these picturebooks is clearly aimed to entertain and delight adult readers.

AB - Leading up to the First World War, German children’s books, in line with the general militarisation of culture, were published in the service of patriotic education and to prepare children for the war. During the war years, enthusiasm for the conflict was encouraged by books which celebrated military action and justified ‘necessary’ sacrifices. This chapter examines how the special emotional appeal of picturebooks, which work with both word and images, and the way in which they lend themselves to travesty and caricature were exploited to make military matters and war exciting and entertaining. It looks at a variety of predominantly comic representations of children playacting soldiers and war in picturebooks and illustrated material with a war theme issued in Germany and Austria in 1914 and 1915, with a special focus on the double address. In these books, war is offered to child readers as an arena in which their desire to emulate adults, and especially their fantasies of omnipotence, can be satisfied; at the same time children playacting war in these picturebooks is clearly aimed to entertain and delight adult readers.

KW - Literature studies

KW - Children's literature studies

KW - English

U2 - 10.4324/9781315668628

DO - 10.4324/9781315668628

M3 - Contributions to collected editions/anthologies

SN - 978-1-138-94783-2

SP - 197

EP - 213

BT - Children's Literature and Culture of the First World War

A2 - Paul, Lissa

A2 - Johnston, Rosemary R.

A2 - Short, Emma

PB - Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

CY - New York

ER -