Foreign Places and Languages in Children's Fiction

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Osnabrück (Fachbereich Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften), course: Experimental Children's Fiction, language: English, abstract: The idea that the use of the motif of foreign places and languages in Children's Fiction is a phenomenon that came up due to globalization sounds evident, but turns out to be misleading. Peter Hunt, Professor Emeritus in Children's Literature, attributes the interest in foreign cultures to '[...] the desire in the child to comprehend the shape of the world, literally and metaphorically' (Hunt 1994, 179). This has been present in Children's Literature long time before, most likely in adventure stories and Fantastic Literature, and so the migrant literature is just another way of dealing with it. In order to find out which effects it has to establish the setting in a place which is unknown to the young readers and to bring them into contact with foreign cultures, I am going to examine four books, written in three different centuries: Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances (1869), The Wind Eye (1976), The Granny Project (1983) and The White Darkness (2005). It is interesting to see how this motif works in the mentioned stories, what impact it has on the characters' life and how it changes them. Therefore I will go further than just describing the relations the protagonists have to the foreign places or languages, but also try to interpret them.