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February 19, 2002
CHILDREN’S BOOKS: Literary speaking...
One wonders whether Hans Christian Anderson, the Danish author who wrote some 190 fairy tales (168 of which were published) between 1835 and 1872, ever thought that more than a hundred years later, his story “The ugly duckling” would still be so popular that primary school children in the alien culture of Pakistan would be adapting it for plays. Would he have ever imagined that these fairy tales would be translated into 100 languages. He would probably never even in his wildest dreams thought of these tales being turned into movies - “The little mermaid”, for instance. Twenty-three of these tales have now been compiled in Fairy tales, and colourfully illustrated by Paul Hey, to make for captivating reading.
Similarly, the partially disabled Anna Sewell’s single work, Black Beauty, a biography of a horse, was not expected to touch the hearts of all — the young and the old alike — for all times to come. Back in 1877, when the book was published (a year after her death), England was a “hell for horses” just like it is here for the donkeys. In Black Beauty, Anna Sewell compares animal abuse to their compassionate handling. In a way, her novel brought the desired effect as it helped in the surfacing of a new wave of empathy towards animals, albeit after her death.
Same goes for Frances Hodgson Burnett’s heart-warming tale of a little girl’s fortitude in times of adversity in her A little princess (first published in 1905). Some say it reflects the author’s personal life beset with tragedies — death of her husband, failed second marriage and death of her eldest son. She was known to reflect on personal dignity and strength of character.
And were it not for the sister brother duo, Charles and Mary Lamb, the young readers may have remained uninitiated to the wonderful world of Shakespeare’s Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, etc. The Tales from Shakespeare, now recognized as a classic, was first published in 1807. The preface gives us a vantage point from where one can reflect on the time when the book was written and also the intention of writing Shakespeare in simplified English: “It has been wished to make these tales easy reading for very young children...”
One can also feel a highly gender-insensitive tenor in the preface, where it goes on to include the young women, of those times, who would find Shakespeare hard to understand! “For young ladies too, it has been the intention chiefly to write; because boys being generally permitted the use of their fathers’ libraries at a much earlier age than girls are, they frequently have the best scenes of Shakespeare by heart, before their sisters are permitted to look into this manly book...”
While these books have been as popular today as they were some five decades back, these were mostly used for English curriculum in private schools and were imported. Today these are easily available, at a much lesser cost, thanks to a publishing house in Islamabad. Alhamra has reprinted these children’s classics “to help children and young people develop a taste for world literature, as well as, simultaneously enable them to develop their language skills and vocabulary” to quote Shafiq Naz, the proprietor of this publishing house.
He acknowledges that many of these classics are available in the market (sometimes at much cheaper rates as well). “But a very important feature of Alhamra junior series is that we give meanings of difficult words as footnotes on the page. And this is an important value-added feature because many readers are too lazy to look up a word in the dictionary,” Naz says.
The feedback that the publishing house is receiving from the market is encouraging. This is reassuring in that it proves that the habit of reading has not met its Waterloo, not as yet. Shafiq Naz hopes that “the teachers would encourage young people to read more than just their prescribed course texts”.
Tales from Shakespeare
By Charles and Mary Lamb
ISBN 969-516-046-8
290pp. Rs260
Fairy tales
By Hans Christian Andersen
ISBN 969-516-054-9
253pp. Rs225
Black Beauty
By Anna Sewell
ISBN 969-516-022-0
238pp. Rs225
A little princess
By Frances Hodgson Burnett
ISBN 969-516-029-8
203pp. Rs180
Alhamra Publishing, Saudi Pak Tower, Jinnah Avenue, Islamabad
Tel: 051-2823862.
Email: contact@alhamra.com
Website:
www.alhamra.com
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