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Between 1902 and 1913 two acclaimed educational reformers wrote several series of children's primers in the Netherlands. Jan Ligthart and Hindericus Scheepstra collaborated closely with the painter Cornelis Jetses who provided the illustrations. The series would become classics in both text and image. In this article the symbolic educational function of the places depicted on the illustrations are analysed. It shows how concrete locales inside the house, outside on the streets and in nature symbolise progressive educational ideas using existing models and metaphors of family life, schooling, and freedom and constraint.

Historical fiction is a powerful way of transmitting national history to later generations. It emerged in the nineteenth century as a means of building identity and fostering solidarity. However, in the 1960s and 1970s, former representations of history were deconstructed. Instead of glorifying the nation, social evils were exposed. As a consequence of this, western European histories of children's literature claim a shift in children's books from an emphasis on political to social history. Historical heroes and triumphs were replaced by accounts of the lives of common people and how they were touched by great events. This article investigates the influence of this changed perception and representation of history on images of nationality in Dutch historical children's books. Two groups are identified: a group of books that are critical of historical practices and events, focus on the lives of common people, and project emancipatory ideals on historical characters; and a group of books that transmit a conventional image of the past which was introduced in former periods, in which nation-building and the formulation of a national character reigned. However, images of nationality transgress these categories.

History has been in the centre of political interest over the last two decades; claimed as a vehicle to strengthen social cohesion, especially among future citizens. At the same time an acknowledgement of episodes such as slavery and colonialism are asked for. This article investigates the tension that results with those two appeals to history in the literary representation of the black pages of history in children's books. It analyses the strategies used to allow children to identify with a contemporary view on this aspect of history. The Netherlands serves as a case study. Five literary strategies are discerned, placing the books on a scale from national heroization to national alienation: monophonic accounts of Western superiority, child protagonists as mediators between past and present, polyphony, multitemporality and narrative alienation.

Historical fiction is a powerful way of transmitting national history to later generations. It emerged in the nineteenth century as a means of building identity and fostering solidarity. This article investigates Dutch historical novels for children. First, it explores the relation between educational ideas and historical novels for children, distinguishing between two groups of children's novels: novels written in the spirit of ideas on national non-denominational education and novels opposing Christian neutrality in education, by glorifying orthodox Protestantism and inculcating combativeness and intolerance. Second, the literary strategies employed to relate history are analysed. Both groups of novels use the same strategies, such as fictional characters as figures of identification, narrators mediating between the present and the past, and restructuring the past in favour of a triumphant ending to the story. However, there is a striking difference in character development.

One of the most popular Dutch educational enlightenment authors was Hieronymus van Alphen. His three volumes of "Little Poems for Children" published in 1778 and 1782 were extremely successful, both in the Netherlands and abroad. Inspired by the German poets Christian Felix Weisse and Gottlob Wilhelm Burmann, Van Alphen brought about an expansion of educational space based on the integration of moral education in the spirit of the educational ideas of Locke, Rousseau and the Philanthropinists with poetical ideas and the nature of the child in both the content and the form of his poems. His poems were translated almost immediately into English, French and, surprisingly, as many of his poems were more or less adaptations of poems by Weisse and Burmann, into German too. Van Alphen's trump card was a reversal of former strategies of education: instead of pressing moral ideas upon the children from an adult point of view, he aimed at identification by (1) writing from the perspective of children, (2) situating the poems in the world of experience of children, (3) using a childlike style with a frolicking metre, rhyme scheme and prosody, and (4) combining text and images, so putting the moral message across visually and textually at the same time. In this paper, we follow the journey of poems for children as media for the cultural transmission of moral educational ideas from Germany to the Netherlands from the perspective of cultural transmission, moral literacy and educational space. We conclude that Van Alphen, with the combined power of text and image, successfully adopted and adapted former educational strategies, such as the moral poetics developed by his German predecessors Christian Felix Weisse and Gottlob Wilhelm Burmann. Taking their strategies on a poetic journey from Germany to the Netherlands, he not only transferred them, but transformed them as well. Van Alphen did so in a specific Dutch utilitarian way. His poems could be read for fun but were intended for learning. They were useful and entertaining at the same time, because he took the life and living environment of children into account, and particularly accounted for the concept of development as a distinguishing characteristic of the specific nature of the child with which child readers could identify.

This article examines the reciprocity between children's literature and educational ideals in Dutch rewritings of international literary classics published for children between 1850 and 1950. It analyses the assumed pedagogical power of rewritings of international literary classics for children from the perspective of three theoretical concepts: (1) "cultural transmission" as a strategy of educational ambition in its capacity to serve social initiation, (2) "adaptation" as a transformation strategy to adjust an artefact to a specific audience, and (3) "gate keepership" as the determining factor in the communication situation of literature for children. Comparing original masterpieces that were originally not, or not specifically, meant for children with their derivatives sheds light on the strategies that were used to mould narratives into pedagogical examples. It shows how protagonists were educated along the lines of the ever-changing pedagogical discourse brought about by historically variable concepts of childhood and displays the transition of the educational value of subjection to external mastery to the ideal of self-mastery of the child. Moreover, it shows how rewritings not only functioned as agents in the transmission of literary artefacts, but by means of that, also provided for the transmission of culture. (Contains 5 figures and 69 footnotes.)

This article examines adaptations in their capacity of preserving literary heritage. It describes how the Middle Dutch beast epic "Reynard the Fox" lost its position in literature for adults and became part of a literary heritage that was no longer read but only studied for its historical value. Versions for children kept the story alive. A comparison of English and Dutch adaptations of the beast epic demonstrates the influence of different cultural contexts on transformation strategies used to cross the bridge between the rough medieval satire and children's literature. While English adaptations affiliated the story to other genres, its status as the embodiment of Dutch national character compelled Dutch rewriters to find a satisfying justification to provide children with a story lead by a remarkably scandalous hero.

Historical fiction is a powerful way of transmitting national history to later generations. It emerged in the nineteenth century as a means of building identity and fostering solidarity. However, in the 1960s and 1970s, former representations of history were deconstructed. Instead of glorifying the nation, social evils were exposed. As a consequence of this, western European histories of children’s literature claim a shift in children’s books from an emphasis on political to social history. Historical heroes and triumphs were replaced by accounts of the lives of common people and how they were touched by great events. This article investigates the influence of this changed perception and representation of history on images of nationality in Dutch historical children’s books. Two groups are identified: a group of books that are critical of historical practices and events, focus on the lives of common people, and project emancipatory ideals on historical characters; and a group of books that transmit a conventional image of the past which was introduced in former periods, in which nation-building and the formulation of a national character reigned. However, images of nationality transgress these categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature is a significant agent in the transmission of culture. Through literature expected behavior and patterns of life are passed on from generation to generation. The anticipated power of children’s literature is even stronger. Socializing the target audience has always been one of its main aims. Consequently, books for children are governed by dominant social, cultural, and educational norms. This article explores the reciprocity between cultural transmission and the transmission of literature. It examines adaptations of international literary classics in their capacity of cultural intermediaries between old masterpieces and young audiences. Focusing on ways of transmitting family ideologies to children, the repository of Dutch adaptations of Reynard the fox, Till Eulenspiegel, Robinson Crusoe, and Gulliver’s travels serves as a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]