Lecture on the developement of the image of the child in children’s literature by professor Lena Kåreland at Ilya State University

A group af about 30 students, teachers and librarians gathered in the Book Store of
Ilya State University in Tbilisi to attend a two hour lecture by Swedish professor in
literature, Lena Kåreland.

Childhood is just a social construction, and it it therefore something that has been
changing over the years, she stated, and added that the concept of childhood as a special
period in every humans life is quite young. A child’s life and possibility to have a proper
childhood is very much depending on where and when you were born, and this also
affects the subjects and tone of voice for the author of children’s books.

There was a storm of questions on both the sometimes dark and disturbing subjects for
Swedish books for young adults and trend of today with ”non gender specific” picture
books, a theme that accordingto some of the audience would be to provocative in
Georgia and according to others could not be published to soon in their home country.