New twists in children’s books
The farmers’ union paper Maaseudun Tulevaisuus takes a look at new trend in Finnish children’s literature – illustrated books dealing with some of the darker sides of life.
It writes that a brief glance at the children’s section in bookstores show that there are heaps of books about princesses, cars and poop humour.
However, some children’s books are by no means merely about superheroes and rainbows.
As an example, it points to a 2020 illustrated book “Miirun isä on vankilassa” (Miiru’s father is in prison), written by Noora Alanen and illustrated by Anne Muhonen, which gives the young reader a glimpse of the emotional turmoil that a father’s prison sentence evokes.
The father’s crime is not revealed in the book, but for several years his loved ones only see in the the prison’s family visitation room. The encounters are happy ones for Miiru, although otherwise the absence of the father sometimes causes annoyance and anger.
According to this paper, it is likely to be the first example of a realistic children’s book in Finland set in a prison environment.
Realistic portrayals of death are also making their way into children’s books. In the children’s novel “Akselin suru” (Akseli’s grief), written by Mari Kujanpää and illustrated by Paula Mela, Akseli first has to get used to the silences of a grandmother wracked by disease and finally faces the day when there is no more grandmother.
Death is dealt with in many other recent children’s books, writes Maaseudun Tulevaisuus, but it is not the only thorny issue that authors have grasped. Children’s books now also include themes such as social influence, political demonstrations, and waste that pollutes the sea.
We had this conversation regularly when the kids were growing up. They read the Grimm Brothers tales in the original German and English, and so they knew that these stories were originally much more complex and dangerous than the Disney versions. Mom died in childbirth so your dad married someone who put her kids ahead of you? Yeah, that was a pretty common occurrence throughout much of human history. There’s a reason these stories had dark themes, not just bluebirds and pretty dresses.
Love this.
In my teens (high school age) I LOVED Ayn Rand’s books, but I took a completely different message from them than what she was trying to convey. It wasn’t until years later that I learned of her real aims.
Similarly, I learned (superficially) about Scientology at age 19 and was at first completely enamored of the idea of being in control of our own emotions and reactions.
I guess it just goes to show how much we project our own thoughts onto consumed media, and also how the insidious indoctrination sets root. Glad I got through it!
What message did you take from them? It isn’t like she is very subtle.
I think I was just an idealistic teen, and read a lot into the narrative. I (and this is all vague, by now) recall thinking the books were about stopping governments subsidizing sub-par projects, to let real innovation happen. I can’t remember if it was Atlas Shrugged or Fountainhead (or quite possibly both), but part of the narrative was about these smarmy, incompetent, yet politically-connected businessmen gaming the system to stop progress.
Disclaimer: I totally skipped the multi-page ideological screed in order to get back to the main narrative thread. I can’t have been the only one.
I haven’t re-read any of them, and am almost embarrassed to, now. I’m sure they weren’t subtle. But that’s part of my point, I guess. That people can inadvertently get sucked in?
I don’t think that is too far off of what she intended, i.e. government bad, collectivism bad, “authentic, true-to-themselves” businessmen good. It’s not hard to see romantic teens thinking, “Oh, if I were true to my own vision and the government didn’t get in the way, then I would be wealthy and successful.” It’s okay for teenagers to be romantic about being true to their visions. Adults actually have to care about other people.
No mention of what the “U.K. archive” is.
True. And we can move this if it threatens to derail, but in my initial reading my impression wasn’t at all “government bad,” it was that selfish, entitled people shouldn’t be in charge of making those decisions that affect society as a whole. As a teen reader, my takeaway was that government should be controlled by smart people who have the well-being of their communities in mind. That government shouldn’t erect barriers to people who are truly solving real problems, in effective ways, just to make space for the smarmy, entitled, ineffective characters (in her books, and in real life).
I’m not defending my teen-interpretation, just explaining it. 
To be fair, getting that message out of Rand is definitely “Odd Stuff”.
Probably why I feel so at home here.
And, to get back on topic:
Not transformation. Transsubstantiation.
There is a third choice.
I just liked the title.
The content is pretty neat too.
Does this mean Canada gets a contract for canadarm 3?
The problem of waste management follows humans wherever they go… 
