27 writers who really belong in school readers, but they haven't got there yet

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Over the past two years, the press has repeatedly raised the topic of the lack of writers and poetesses in the school literature course, despite the fact that the books and poems of many of them are included in the treasury of Russian and world culture. "Culturology" decided to imagine which writers' works could be included in school anthologies, why and what it would be worth telling about these writers.

Scandinavian storytellers

The Swedish Astrid Lindgren and Selma Lagerlöf, the Finnish Tove Jansson and the Norwegian Anne-Katarina Westly have always been loved by little Russian-speaking readers. You can choose to read their different works at different ages, because Lagerlöf is not only Nils and the geese, and Lindgren did not limit herself to stories about the Kid and Karlsson.

In any event, the reader should know that these writers have had a tremendous impact on both twentieth century children's literature and society in their home countries. Lagerlöf refused to cooperate with Nazi Germany (and not surprisingly - she had a disability, she had nothing to love the Nazis) and received the Nobel Prize for her cumulative contribution to Swedish literature, because of Lindgren's fairy tales, they revised tax laws and the approach to raising children, books Westly was illustrated by her beloved husband, and Jansson painted her Moomins herself, because she was an artist. Teenagers can find out that she suffered from depression.

Russian storytellers

The names of Tatyana Alexandrova, Tamara Gabbe and Sofya Prokofieva will seem unfamiliar to many adults. This does not prevent them from recalling with pleasure the adventures of the little housewife Kuzi (the author of books about whom it was Aleksandrov), to revise on the occasion of the "City of Masters" and "The Ring of Almanzor" (film adaptation of Gabbe's plays) and to recommend each other to show the children "The Adventures of the Yellow Suitcase" (one of many magical stories composed by Prokofieva).

As for the biographies, they will definitely indicate that Alexandrova was brought up by a peasant nanny who knew many folk tales, and the writer herself was, rather, an artist, like Prokofiev; Gabbe survived the Leningrad blockade and translated foreign fairy tales for Soviet children; Prokofieva's stories have been filmed more than once, and they can be watched in the form of cartoons or films.

How did schoolchildren live a hundred years ago

There was practically no Soviet schoolboy-book reader who would not have read the adventures of one or the other red-haired girl - from the Russian writer Lydia Budogoskaya or from the German Irmgard Coyne. But if the book of the first is full of bitterness, since her heroine has to survive in a situation of domestic violence and bullying at school (in a fine pre-revolutionary gymnasium, where instead of a disco there are balls at which they dance a waltz), then the second is simultaneously sad and funny, because the main character is constantly wants the best, but it turns out some kind of prank … And all this - against the background of the First World War, ravaging the country, against the background of life from hand to mouth and general hypocrisy.

In the nineties, schoolchildren rediscovered Charskaya, the most popular children's writer of the early twentieth century, who, alas, did not come to court in the new Russia. Many of her books consist of endless self-repetitions and constant moments of exaltation, but "Princess Javakh", the most "Chara" of her books, will perfectly show how girls lived in closed schools, without the opportunity to learn news from the big world, think over them - living only what happens within the walls of an educational institution with strict morals. And the most peculiar in its plot is the adventure story "Sibirochka".

The biographical note, of course, will indicate that Coyne's books were burned by the Nazis, and she wrote her only children's story - memories of her school years - when the Nazis hunted her and she had to hide. During both world wars, Budogoskaya went to work as a nurse in a hospital, and the story of a red-haired girl is far from her only children's works. And Lydia Charskaya was at first an actress and, since they were paid very little in the theater, she began to write books so as not to starve to death.

It is worth adding to this list another writer whom everyone read to in Soviet times - although her most famous book is about a girl who does not go to school yet. This is Valentina Oseeva and her "Dinka". In many ways, this book is autobiographical. They began to forget her because the parents who act against the background of the adventures of the fidget girl and her homeless friend are revolutionaries, but there is no propaganda in the book itself, this is precisely a story about the life of children before the revolution. About Sytyna calendars, fairs, walks along the steep, steep banks of the river (until my mother sees), secret caves and collisions with the sharp corners of life. By the way, when Oseeva grew up, at first she became not a writer, but a teacher in a colony for homeless girls. The girls-charges and persuaded her to start writing books.

On the contrary, the life of a girl nicknamed Kishmish from the lyrically ironic stories of Teffi, not published in the USSR, about her childhood, is absolutely bourgeois, without a premonition of revolution and practically without collisions with social problems. She not only talks about feelings and situations familiar to almost every child, but also about the daily life of middle-class children in the Russian Empire - about the eldest sister's corset secretly put on by a little girl, about a cheesecake stolen from a nanny, about a children's party with paper figures on the tables, and others. little things that sometimes you really want to reproduce at home.

Social problems

The cult teenage writer Maria Halashi in Hungary was very loved in the USSR, although only two of her books were translated into Russian - about the difficult relationship of a paralyzed girl and her hooligan sister and how an orphan gypsy from hinterland. These books are acutely perceived even now, judging by the reviews of parents, whose children managed to find in the closet and read both stories. Very little is known about Maria Halasha herself. She worked in a children's magazine and spoke almost nothing about herself. Given the scale of her figure in Hungarian children's literature, it’s surprising that no one has yet unearthed her biography.

Teenagers should definitely read their Russian authors Ekaterina Murashova - or her “Alienation Strip” or “Correction Class”. Murashova is a popular child psychologist who maintains her own column on the Snob portal, and many of those who read her story in a pioneer magazine in the late Soviet era still cannot combine the images of a writer and a psychologist into one person in their heads - but this is exactly one person and our contemporary.

About what social problems looked like in the nineteenth century - when a successful family of a judge because of cholera loses its breadwinner and the history of the family turns sharply to poverty, facing family violence by a son-in-law, to the fact that one daughter has to suffer from the harassment of employers, and the other - from cruelty, usual for closed schools for girls - in her memoirs Elizaveta Vodovozova, who is often contrasted with Charskaya, is amazingly colorful. Vodovozova also gives a general picture of rural Russia immediately before and after the abolition of serfdom, in stories that are interesting to read.

Storytellers are not for toddlers

Among the classics of authors of fairy tales for teenagers, it is worth adding to the anthology the Algerian Taos Amrush with her treasury of magical stories from Arabic-speaking Africa, the Czech folklorist Bozena Nemtsova and the Englishwoman Diana Winn Jones with her cycle of stories about Crestomancy, an official who controls the legality of magic in several worlds and along the way. helps one or another confused teenager.

Taos Amrush was the daughter of a famous Berber singer and eventually took the place of her mother for the Berbers. Before her birth, Taos's parents had to flee their homeland due to the fact that they converted to Christianity and began to threaten them. Already an adult, the storyteller went with her brother to visit the Berber clans in order to preserve their amazing fairy tales for history. "Twelve Months" by Bozhena Nemtsova are better known in Russia than the tales of Amrush - and she is called one of the main collectors of Slavic folklore. Surprisingly, despite the fact that she was honored in every possible way during her lifetime, she died in poverty. None of the Czech patriots wanted to help the guardian of culture financially. As for Jones, Neil Gaiman himself considered her his teacher, and the Russian audience knows and loves the adaptation of one of her books - "Howl's Moving Castle" by Miyazaki.

Non-fiction of the past

It was not for nothing that Sei Shonagon was published in the USSR as the main representative of classical Japanese literature. Her "Notes at the Headboard" are worth reading as a teenager. They are actually diaries describing the realities of Japanese life many hundreds of years ago. They have their own grace, and in the light of the fashion for Japanese culture, they will arouse a healthy historical interest in schoolchildren. True, they often touch upon the theme of novels between court ladies and gentlemen, which sometimes confuses parents.

The ethnographic notes about Russia by Madame de Stael, the most famous ideological opponent of Napoleon, which she wrote, being sent by him from France, is also a touch to history, both native and worldwide.

Non-childish social romance

A number of English-speaking writers at one time, each in its own way, shook the world. They raise sensitive issues, some of which are about the relevance of the Pushkin era, while others continue to torment even now.

This, of course, is, first of all, the main British female trio - Jane Austen ("Pride and Prejudice"), Emily Brontë ("Wuthering Heights") and Charlotte Brontë ("Jen Eyre" and "The Town"). Why don't Russian schoolchildren find out that the illustrations for Eugene Onegin are often confused with scenes from Pride and Prejudice, for good reason? Wuthering Heights raises the question of the cycle of domestic violence - and at the same time has a gripping storyline and pseudo-mystical atmosphere. The world of "Jane Eyre" and "Township" is a world of schoolgirls and teachers, as well as social prejudice and the constant need to build healthy personal boundaries (if those around them refuse to respect them).

The biographies of the writers are also interesting. Jane Austen hid all her life that she was writing novels, because it was indecent for a girl. Emily Brontë was unable to attend school because she was under a panic attack far from home; both she and her sisters in childhood were fed only one potato.

Due to the age of the protagonist, many think that Harper Lee's only novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is a children's book, but in fact, few people will understand it before the age at which global questions are asked about the injustices of the world and about moral choices, and By the way, in the disclosure of the last topic, she will give a head start to Tolstoy. Daphne Du Maurier's "Rebecca" makes you wonder whether a person who always chooses his own destiny, without regard to others, is so good - and why "provoked to a crime" does not mean innocence. After all, the killer ultimately chooses whether to kill or not.

Finally, without a doubt, teenagers should get acquainted - at least in general terms - with the work of the scandalous Georges Sand (for example, with her "Consuelo"), the no less scandalous Margaret Mitchell ("Gone with the Wind") and questions about the measure of crime and punishment from Agatha Christie ("Ten Little Indians"), especially since all three books are clothed in an adventure form. It would also be nice to discuss why these books caused such scandals and find out what scandals accompanied the lives of writers. For example, George Sand wore trousers when it was officially forbidden, Agatha Christie married a much younger man, and Margaret Mitchell suffered from spousal abuse, and many felt that taking this issue to court was supposedly excessive.

Perhaps some of our contemporaries will be in the textbooks of our grandchildren. 10 best books of the XXI century according to The Guardian: David Mitchell, Svetlana Aleksievich and others.