Literature for children in Romania in the digital era

literature for children in romania in the digital era LittleLIT, an online project for children's literature


The Fairy Tale Association has organised this autumn's leading event focusing on children's and youth literature. Running as LittleLIT Days, the event brought together more than 650 children who enjoyed workshops, public reading sessions and book launches, staged as part of the aforementioned project.


For a whole week, more than 25 online events were held, dedicated to pupils. Among them, reading workshops offered by Romanian authors of children's and youth literature, staged in schools around Bucharest, Timișoara and Cluj. The activities were dedicated to professionals in the field on children's literature, such as authors, illustrators, translators, editors, PR specialists, book sellers. Part of the events also targeted the lay public. "Together" was this year's theme, purposefully thought out as a feasible alternative to the social environment we live in, marred by fear, loneliness and isolation. 


Writer Victoria Pătrașcu, one of the founders of the Fairy Tale Association:


"When we thought out this project, that is a year ago, we never imagined things would be just the same, that we will still be confined indoors. We would have really liked to enjoy all that, together with the children, to be able to join them, to take their questions. Things were not the same just as we would have liked to, which doesn't mean we cannot be together even in these difficult conditions, so that the LittleLIT story may continue, beautifully. LittleLIT stemmed from a collaboration between the Fairy Tale Association and EUNIC. What we had there, from the very outset, was an idea in a nutshell, it was a project by means of which we thought of taking writers of contemporary Romanian literature for children to their readers, so that the latter may have the chance to know those who craft the stories. The little ball that we had in the beginning had grown into a maiden edition, in 2019, themed LittleLIT Mirrorings, where we had partnerships with five foreign cultural institutions. Back then we had five foreign guest writers who gave workshops for Romanian writers as we very much want the Romanian writers to have examples of good practice, so they may know how to make themselves better known, how to become better writers, how to refine their writing. And it was also then that we staged meetings with potential readers, we took those writers to the meet the children, in schools or in rather underprivileged milieus, where children do not have access to culture."


"The LittleLIT Days, Together" schedule has been thought out to highlight the importance of the book and reading for the development of children and in a bid to give them the opportunity to get acquainted with books what were written for them, and with those who wrote them. Equally, the project seeks to create a space of dialogue between children's literature professionals (writers, editors, professors, reading promoters) from Romania and from other European countries. So The Fairy Tale Association continues to strengthen the dialogue with schools and the teaching staff, offering teachers specific methods for using literature as a method for teach the content-based items in the curricula.


Victoria Patrascu:


"We somehow felt lonely and lost in the great Romanian literature and we thought it was unfair for the children's literature to be viewed as a Cinderella of literature. There weren't back then, and there still aren't either, as we speak, any awards for Romanian children's literature or if they exist, they're not being awarded. Notwithstanding, there is an increasing number of writers of children's literature, writers whose success has been growing. Some of us have got round to participating in international fairs, in the meantime, even at the International Children's Book Fair in Bologna, which is something extraordinary, we have become increasingly aware of the importance of children's literature in the world. This literature shapes up readers, it a literature that has been developing one year after the next. Although book sales are on the wane, children's literature is on the rise, literature for children brings money and that's what editors should be interested in. Many of them realized, and that is precisely why they created special collections, they realized children's literature does have its perks, apart from those we know already: those of bringing up the new readers, of developing children's emotional balance, of helping them develop. Now, returning to the 2018 moment, when we founded the Fairy Tale Association, things fared worse than they fare today, so we thought of turning pro. We had some examples as well, many of them from the Nordic countries, telling us that when we were together, we were able to do a lot of things. And that's what happened, we were a nucleus made of four writers, Adina Rosetti, Laura Grünberg, Iulia Iordan and myself, who started up this Fairly Tale Association. But here we are, three years on, we are 20 writers already, we have three caravans who reached dozens of communes, as well as hundreds of workshops on the record. Also, we organize this event as well, the LittleLIT Days, under the form of a children's literature festival. As of late, we also have a YouTube channel we want to develop."


There were three keynote online launches of LittleLIT Days' special guests this year. Swedish writer Åsa Lind, Swiss author Dana Grigorcea and Romanian writer Lavinia Braniște gathered more than 2, 000 young readers. Equally successful were the two big events dedicated to specialists and those interested to find out more about contemporary Romanian children's literature - the webinar Incubator themed "The domestic book market for children: a magical, otherworldly world facing worldly problems" and the Masterclass given by the special guests.

(Translation by Eugen Nasta)



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Publicat: 2021-11-20 14:00:00
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