© Sylvie Serprix
孩子们不再读书了，青少年读得更少。各种屏幕让我们童年里的那些漫画书和唱片都成了历史。当代人如是说。
其实，无论末世论者喜欢与否，儿童文学目前的发展形势很好。虽然存在各种不利因素，但书本在孩子们心中依然占据着特殊的位置。朗读是成人和儿童共享时光的专属时刻。鉴于早期阅读对学习语言、克服恐惧和理解世界都具有重要意义，这的确是让人欣慰的好消息。哪怕是热衷于爱情故事和英雄奇幻的青少年，也会沉浸在厚厚的书本中，乐此不疲。
几十年来，从巴西的安娜·玛丽亚·马查多（Ana Maria Machado）、日本的上桥菜穗子（Nahoko Uehashi）到美国人莫里斯·桑达克（Maurice Sendak）和法国人托米·安热雷（Tomi Ungerer），一代又一代作家和插画家支持儿童文学始终保持着蓬勃的生机，他们为长期以来受困于枯燥说教或道德约束的这种文学类型注入了新的活力。于是，从儿童视角创作的图书层出不穷，内容新颖别致。传统故事，乃至某些作者和出版商的档案资料如今都被赋予遗产价值，也从一个侧面证明了这一点。例如，《海狸爷爷丛书》（Père Castor）历史资料在2017年被列入联合国教科文组织《世界记忆名录》。
儿童读物的发展状况还可以通过经济效益来衡量。2023年，全球童书行业价值将近120亿美元，是许多国家出版行业的重量级成员。这种繁荣不仅得益于一些全球畅销书的热卖，世界各地热情高涨的出版商都在制作优质图书，包括使用非主流语言的图书。联合国教科文组织合作出版的《我们何以成为人类》（What makes us human）就是一个明证，该书已推出了21种语种的版本。
儿童文学有着重要的经济、教育、文化作用和象征意义，可依然没能得到充分认可。儿童文学无疑是成功的，但传统媒体对待这种文学类型极为吝啬，很少提供评论空间。在许多人看来，为儿童写书是一项二流工作，始终摆脱不了亚体裁的地位。
《礼拜五——太平洋上的灵簿狱》（Vendredi ou la vie sauvage）的作者，法国作家米歇尔·图尼耶（Michel Tournier）早在20世纪70年代就提出了与此相反的观点：“为儿童写书是向儿童致以崇高的敬意，也是像我一样认定，只有完美无缺的作品才适合年轻的读者。……眼光如此高远的作家，其胸怀抱负必然也是无法估量的。”
还有什么是比帮助孩子长大成人更崇高的志向呢？对于成年人来说，还有什么能比在读书时重温自己的童年时光更令人欣喜呢？
主编
阿涅丝·巴尔东（Agnès Bardon）
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Youth literature: a story of growth and wonder
Children don’t read any more. Teenagers even less so. Screens have made the comic books and albums of our childhood a thing of the past. Such is the current discourse.
In reality, whether the doomsayers like it or not, children's literature is in good shape. Against all odds, the book continues to hold a special place in the hearts of children. Reading aloud remains a special moment of complicity between adults and children. And that’s good news, given how important early reading is for learning language, overcoming fears, and understanding the world. Even teenagers, with their passion for romance and hero fantasies, will happily immerse themselves in a thick book.
For several decades, the vitality of children's literature has been sustained by a generation of authors and illustrators who, from Ana Maria Machado (Brazil) and Nahoko Uehashi (Japan) to Maurice Sendak (USA) and Tomi Ungerer (France), have breathed new life into a genre that was, for a long time, trapped inside a didactic or moralistic straitjacket. The result is a proliferating and inventive range of books that speak at child’s level. This is also borne out by the heritage value now accorded to traditional tales, and even to the archives of certain authors and publishers, such as those of Père Castor, which were inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2017.
The growth of children’s books can also be measured by their economic good health. In 2023, the sector was worth almost US$12 billion worldwide, making it a publishing heavyweight in many countries. And this boom is not just due to the success of some global bestsellers. Everywhere, passionate publishers are producing quality books, including in non-mainstream languages. The book What makes us human, co-published by UNESCO, and already available in twenty-one editions, illustrates this approach well.
And yet, despite its economic, symbolic, educational and cultural heft, children’s literature continues to suffer from a lack of recognition. Despite its successes, very little critical space is dedicated to the genre in the traditional media. It’s as if writing for children remains – in the minds of many – a minor activity, an eternal sub-genre.
Michel Tournier (France), the author of Vendredi ou la vie sauvage [Friday or the Other Island], argued just the opposite back in the 1970s: “It is to pay a very great homage to children, and to agree, as I do, that a work can only be right for a young audience if it is perfect . . . The writer who sets his sights this high therefore conforms to an ambition beyond measure”.
What higher ambition could there be than to help a child grow up? For an adult, what greater delight than to reconnect with their own childhood for the time it takes to read a book?
Agnès Bardon
Editor in Chief
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